


Cultural Exchange

by Therrae (Dasha_mte)



Series: Xenoethnography [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Anthropology, Mecha, Other, multi-cannon-mashup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dasha_mte/pseuds/Therrae
Summary: It also didn’t help that the average glyph message was only three characters long, used no articles or prepositions, and usually had no verbs. What was the proper response to::Curiosity; Sensation of great speed? Was it a question? A comparison?  Why, after a brief visit by National Security Director Mearing, did four different ‘Bots send::Emphasis; overlapping? Why was a particularly bad joke by Bulkhead derided as ::Underchargedwhen there were actual glyphs forNot funnyandHumor fail?How did any of that work?





	1. Part 1: Alien Contact

**Chapter 1**

Eddie was the only one on her committee who wasn’t nuts.

Roberts was obsessed with his own ego and one brilliant idea he had had half a century ago. Murray obsessively micromanaged, frantic and anxious about everyone’s competence, including her own. She continually revised and reorganized any project she supervised. Previs – _cringeworthy_ Previs whom everyone avoided – was a famous genius, but a maniac even when he took his medication, and he had the embarrassing habit of going off it _in the field_ and having to be picked up by his grad students at the police station. It was only a miracle nothing so far had been above a misdemeanor.

Eddie – Dr. Brewster – was ancient and bitter, but solidly sane. He’d actually been harder to manage then the crazy ones: he hadn’t been too distracted by his own issues to actually pay attention to her thesis. His questions were always relevant and his critiques were always – irksomely – right.

He only asked two questions during the defense. They were the hardest questions, but they were topics he had harped on all along, so she was prepared, at least. When it was over, he didn’t come out for drinks with the others in the traditional celebration. He passed her a postit demanding a meeting at his office early the next morning.

It had seemed unfair. He wasn’t the boss of her any longer. Still, it would have been too ungracious to refuse. She felt a bit put out, though, until Eddie had announced that she had a job interview.

“What?” And then, “Really? Where? Adjuncting?”

“Applied.”

She’d thought of applied, of course. Washington DC wasn’t that far away, and that referral company had a poster up in the department. It wasn’t like there were so many teaching jobs available, not good ones….and the chance at travel, well, she was young, unattached. Now was a good time to see the world. But even applied jobs were fairly hard to get. You didn’t go into anthropology because you wanted to get rich. And here was one offering an interview her first full day?

“Wow,” she said, because she had to say something.

“It’s for the Department of Defense.”

She blinked, feeling shocked and a little offended. “Defense?” You didn’t study people so that your government could more easily make war on them. It was wrong and scary, and professionally, anyone who had the DOD (or CIA or DHS) on their vita would have to justify that for the rest of their lives.

Assuming they could justify the work to themselves.

Eddie looked at her hard. “They wanted me for it. An…advisory position I’d been doing… they need someone on site. I’d…” he leaned forward. “I would give anything to take it on, but I’m too damn old.” He made a face, and Kim remembered that he’d spent half of last term in on leave recovering from a bypass. “They asked for a recommendation.”

“Oh.” She said, thinking. “Thank you.”

“You should. This is the chance of a lifetime.”

“What is it?”

He grinned a bit nastily. “I can’t tell you. Classified. And you aren’t the only candidate being considered.”

For a moment she felt pinned. She didn’t want to offend him. She didn’t want to put him off. But – “There are ethical questions.”

“There are?”

“Well, I can’t be a…a _spy_ for some country we’re going to invade.” She realized, with a surreal sense of not quite déjà vu, that one of her informants had point-blank asked her if she was spying for the government once. She had _laughed_ ….

“They’re allies,” he said after a moment. “An immigrant population living here in the US. There are some…problems with …adaptation. Cultural problems. Your specialty.”

“Oh,” she said. She thought of Iraq. She thought of Afghanistan. She thought about immigrants who couldn’t go home because they had bet that America was their best chance to end terrorism and totalitarianism. Helping people like that --That would be honorable work. Even if her work wound up classified and un-publishable, it would be worth _doing_. 

Another thought made her squirm. “I speak Spanish and a little Russian,” she said.

“Not a problem,” he said. “They won’t care about that.”

Oh. Well. Translators, then, most likely. They would speak English, obviously. “Okay.”

He slid a folder across the desk. “The interview is in Nevada. Day after tomorrow. Uncle Sam is buying the plane ticket. They’ll expect that packet to be filled out by the time you get there; security check. Tell them the truth.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right. Thank you.” A security clearance? She had never, ever, imagined she would need one. She might have trouble getting one; she’d spent the last two years in the company of foreign nationals, some of whom had questionable pasts or contacts. Still, the government must know that: it was the expertise they were considering her for.

***

She was met at the airport by a very polite, very young soldier in uniform. He drove her to a military base where she was met by a very large, very solid man in a suit who introduced himself as “Bill.” She thought about security and intelligence and wondered if it was his real name.

He took her packet – the vast security questionnaire – and passed it to another man in a suit. He gave her another packet, “compensation and benefits, you probably want to look at that before you make any decisions, although nobody’s argued with it yet,” and led her along, stark echoy corridors and up narrow metal stairways.

“We’ve had six candidates so far. None of them panned out. “

“They didn’t want the job?” though she didn’t think that was likely.

“The guy making the decision is picky. Although, to be fair, the requirements are very specialized.”

Kim took a deep breath. “What requirements?”

Bill paused. “I can’t get into that right now.”

Oh. “Who is making the decision?”

“Actually, the community leader of the refugee population. You would be getting paid by us, but the position is working for _them_. Frankly, we don’t have any say in who gets hired.” 

“That must be frustrating,” she offered, making conversation, wondering how much resentment the job was causing. Was what people said about government turf wars true?

Bill shrugged. “If it keeps them happy. Hell, it’s cheaper than the components for a fusion generator.”

That was probably a joke. If it was, Kim had no idea if it was funny.

“Can you tell me -- ”

“I can’t tell you anything, unfortunately. After the interview, if you satisfy the big boss, we’ll be able to give you the basics. As I said, we’ve interviewed six already. We’ve got an eighth on the list, but he doesn’t look promising. If you don’t pass muster, we’ll probably have to start over.” He sounded put-upon.

The room looked almost civilian. There was a carpet on the floor, a sofa, a coffee table. At the back of the room was a sink and coffee maker and a box of donuts. On the opposite wall was a computer. The screen was black, but the little blue light showing the camera was on.

Bill showed her to a seat on the couch and offered her coffee. Kim hated coffee, but she had learned to drink it in shabby apartments and church basements and the break rooms of dry cleaners and hair salons. She asked for milk and sugar, determined not to flinch if it turned out they only had powdered soy ‘creamer.’ Bill had _actual_ cream.

Then Bill sat beside her on the sofa, set his own black coffee down, and picked up a clipboard. “Com check,” he said.

“Com check,” came the answer from the computer across the room. “Good afternoon, Dr. Montgomery. It is a pleasure to meet you.” The voice was unaccented, very deep and very polite. She smiled and tried not to look disconcerted.

For a moment she tried not to think of old television, and then reconsidered. “Well, this is very ‘Charlie’s Angles.’” She turned to Bill. “I guess you must be what’s-his-name… Bosley?”

Bill turned his head to address the camera. “That is a reference to an old -- ”

“I have located the reference,” came the even, patient response. “It is ... almost apropos to this situation.” He paused. “I apologize, Dr. Montgomery, for the limited communications medium. I realize that this is discourteous. Unfortunately, it is the best choice at the moment.”

“That’s okay,” Kim answered, wondering if it was a security measure or some limitation of technology. Skype went everywhere, didn’t it? But that might not be secure. Or they might be speaking from a war zone. Was the refugee population still in a hazardous situation making do with cell phones or something? She bit back all the questions she had no right to ask.

“If we’re all ready,” Bill said, “I’ll start with the basic questions. Can you tell us a little bit about your most recent research?”

“Well, I’ve been working with immigrant communities in and around Boston. Mainly my focus was the role of community organizations and religious institutions in the transition to, well, coping with living in the United States.”

“Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this area?”

“Well, my step mother is Puerto Rican. Which isn’t quite the same, since they are already citizens, but culturally the same sort of issues emerge. It got me interested.” This was an area she had discussed many times before, at parties, in class, a couple of times at conferences. She talked about her research questions, she talked about her data, she confessed in the funniest way possible the biggest mistakes she’d made during participant observation.

Bill seemed a little bored. It would worry her, but he’d done this lots of times already, and clearly he wasn’t interested in ethnography anyway. She told her best stories. She kept her answers brief. The interview was going all right.

And then, about twenty minutes in, the person watching through the computer asked, “The allegations against Napoleon Chagnon: in your opinion was there any merit to them?”

For a moment she froze, horrified and uncertain. “No!” she said as soon as she could answer. “There was no actual evidence against him and no motive! And nothing to be gained from – “she found herself gagging on the description of the allegations. “No, I do not believe he did it.”

“You do not believe he deliberately spread measles?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You do not believe he gave them guns?”

“Oh.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “He admitted to that. From the beginning. And, yes, there are ethical arguments that say it wasn’t the best idea…but it was a useful technology, they were using them for hunting, and their neighbors had them. They would have gotten them anyway.”

A pause, then, “It was a technology for which they had no precedent, their culture was not prepared for the implications.”

“No, that’s true. But my culture has had the things for hundreds of years, you can’t say we use them well. The technology exists. The Yanamami made a decision. It was their decision, not ours. They asked him and he said yes.”

Bill winced and flipped the pages back on the clipboard. Well, that’s done it, Kim thought. She had given the wrong answer. The interview was over.

The voice from the computer connection said, “Have you read Malinowski’s private diaries?”

Halfway to thanking them for their time, Kim’s head snapped up at the question. “Um. Just excerpts.”

Bill’s eyebrows were raised slightly. He set the clipboard down and picked up a tablet computer and called up the ‘keyboard.’

“What do you think of his attitudes toward his work?”

This was familiar. Students had asked her this. She shrugged. “I think when you use your _self_ and your life as your data collection tool it is going to be very personal. Sometimes you are going to hate yourself and everything around you. And everyone. For all kinds of reasons. It’s normal. With practice you can still get the data, though. You can do the work.”

“You don’t think emotions cloud perception?”

“You can try very hard to avoid that. It helps….Look, I admit. Sometimes it goes wrong. It doesn’t always work. There has been bad ethnography. I had days when I did it. You just…try harder. And you keep trying.”

Bill made a little grunt at some message from the tablet and set it aside.

The patient, polite voice said, “In your opinion, which was a better movie, _Independence Day_ or E.T.?”

Kim assumed that question was meant to throw her off…or maybe to make her feel more comfortable and off guard. There wasn’t time to suss it out, though. She just answered it. And then next weird question, too: “Why is blue for boys and pink for girls?”

And the next, “Are you uncomfortable around rapidly changing or highly advanced technology?”

And then it was back to ethnographic methods….and anthropological theory….and then, “What is the difference between a wig and a hat?”

“A…what?” Kim repeated stupidly.

The computer screen blinked to life with a picture of George Washington. His usual white pony tail was CGIed out smoothly and replaced by a Cher bouffant. And then that changed to a cowboy hat.

“Well…” she said. This was a test. They were seeing how patient she was or how well she explained things. “A wig is supposed to look like hair….”

President Washington was now wearing a clown’s rainbow afro. “This does not resemble human hair.”

My God. Could they come from a culture that didn’t wear hats? Who didn’t wear hats? People from rain forests, _maybe_ , but that wasn’t her specialty. “No…noooo. That sort thing is a… _comment_ on human hair. A wig can be an improvement on actual hair, or just a replacement, or a shortcut to fashion, or a…mockery of the real thing.” It occurred to her that if this was an actual question, she must be speaking to someone for whom English was a second language. Was she being clear enough? “The purpose of most wigs and some hats is purely symbolic, not practical.” If he – whoever he was – really didn’t know, though, if English _was_ a second language, then where was the accent? The voice was perfectly modulated and spoke without hesitation.

“The intent behind this is humorous?” The clown wig was now on a clown.

“Yes….and maybe social commentary…. It depends on the clown…. It’s not my specialty.” What kind of person knew enough about anthropology to ask about Chagnon, but not enough about Western culture to understand a clown? No one. This was some kind of test. Kim briefly pressed her palms over her eyes, whishing she could run her hands through her hair. Her hair looked nice, though, and she had makeup on and so she straightened her shoulders and tried to look composed.

Apparently that was a failure. “You are finding this conversation difficult,” the voice observed.

“I expect you are trying to make it a little difficult,” she said.

Bill laughed. He stood up and refilled her coffee. “I wish you wouldn’t use George Washington,” he said in the direction of the computer.

“Using a historic figure does not isolate the issue from current contexts?”

Bill shook his head, not a negative so much as a slight scolding. “That historical figure was our first president.”

A pause. Then, “I apologize. I hope you were not offended, Dr. Montgomery.”

“No. I’m fine.” She was too confused to be offended. She took the coffee Bill offered and set the cup down.

“May we continue with the interview?” At her nod, the voice continued. “What would your response be if you met an alien?”

Kim glanced at Bill. He was fiddling with his tablet again. “I probably already have,” she admitted. “I didn’t ask about that. It’s none of my business. I don’t work for ICE. It’s not my job to enforce those laws. It’s not my right.”

Bill gave a startled laugh. Kim scowled and continued – she probably wouldn’t have otherwise, but she was irritated – “But my sympathies are for the desperate people working for practically nothing at thankless or dangerous jobs, not the slavers who hire them.”

“What does….ah.” The voice paused. “We have misunderstood one another.” The screen flicked on again, this time showing a clip from _The Day the Earth Stood Still_. “If you met this kind of alien?”

Was he testing her geekiness or her xenophobia? Or was this question just to weed out the flakey? “That kind of depends on what they were here for, wouldn’t it? Like everybody else, I dream about cool aliens asking us to join the federation or whatever. Somebody completely different, that’s the ethnographer’s dream, isn’t it? But it isn’t very likely.”

“It isn’t likely that there is other intelligent life in the universe?”

“It isn’t likely that they would get here…or if they did, that it would happen in my lifetime and not….millions of years ago or millions of years from now. Why? Do you think we’ve got a shot? At meeting someone else?”

“I am quite certain of it.”

Bill tapped franticly on his tablet.

Kim nodded and kept her expression nonjudgemental. Informants had said much weirder things to her than confessing a fervent belief in aliens. If it had been that kind of interview she would have followed up and asked why he thought so, but she was the one who was supposed to answer the questions.

“In chapter four of your dissertation, you discuss the role of language in identity production. I have a few questions.” And so it continued. A few questions about her own research, one about health policy, one asking her to explain a joke from a comedy news show the night before. The topics seemed to rotate almost randomly. On the heels of her answer to a question about sports metaphors, the voice addressed Bill. “Dr. Montgomery is an acceptable candidate, Agent Fowler. Please commence the negations.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Bill protested. “We haven’t finished the security check. It’ll take at least a week – “

“The results of the background check have been sent to your web interface. I am quite satisfied.” He sounded definite, as though there were no one else to please. “I believe there is a great deal of paperwork. It will be possible to meet with her this afternoon.” The blue light on the camera turned off.

Bill sighed. “That’s it then. All right. Let’s go start the paperwork.”

“Wait, what? I’m hired?”

“Do you know what G13 is?” She didn’t . “You’re hired if you sign the confidentiality agreements.”

“Oh. Um. What’s confidential?”

“Everything. If you’re lucky, you can publish in about twenty years. Maybe.” He smiled. “I guarantee, it’ll be a best seller, though. When it comes out.” He chuckled and headed for the door, not looking to see if she was following.

The paperwork – actual paper, the kind you signed over and over – took two hours. The staff – in uniforms, but still with a ‘secretary’ vibe under the floppy cammo clothing – was polite enough. They gave her more coffee and a powerbar. Bill and several men in uniforms (the kind with little glittery bits on the collar and _damn_ , apparently Kim was going to have to learn to read rank insignia) drifted in and out, looking her up and down before continuing on.

She found a form explaining G13. Her eyes bugged out.

She found the station assignment: location was referred to in code, duties said only ‘ethnographer’ and ‘cultural attaché,’ and the incidentals list included ‘living on site’ and ‘providing own food,’ ‘no unapproved technology,’ ‘twenty-four hour call.’

It was a two year assignment, extension possible. That was a frightening amount of job security when you considered that last week she’d been expecting to spend a decade as contingent faculty.

The confidentiality forms took the longest. They were long and absolutely strict. They would lock her away for decades if she told their secrets….

Wow, she really, really hoped nothing really ugly was going on here. Or that nothing ugly _would_ go on. Was she the sort of person who could go to prison for ratting out – _oh, god_ , what? fraud? human rights abuses? War crimes?

How bad could it get?

How brave was she?

Bill paused, looming over her shoulder. “Something wrong?” he asked.

Kim swallowed. “You know what I’m getting into?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

“Am I…going to regret it?”

He grunted, almost smiling. “Nope,” he said.

She glanced down at the paperwork. “Just who is it I’m working for? What _is_ this?”

“You know that polite guy who asked all the hard questions? You answer to him.” He made a face. “First rate pain in my ass, but…fair. He won’t ask you to do anything unethical, if that’s what you’re worried about. And no, we’re not invading his country.” Then, as an afterthought, “No sexual harassment. Don’t worry.” He nodded to himself and walked away, clearly busy.

Kim blinked after him for a long time. Whatever she was worried about, it was the wrong thing.

Kim finished the forms. Bill collected them and passed them off to a clerk before leading her out of the building, across a parking lot and into another building. This one had a lot of exposed ductwork and overly-wide doors. They wandered through a maze of hallways and then up three flights of stairs, down another corridor, and into a surprisingly normal-looking room. Like the interview room, there was a carpet on the floor, a comfortable sofa, a short table with business chairs. 

Bill opened a door on the other side of the room and motioned her to proceed him out. There was a single step up, onto a wide – not another corridor, some kind of balcony overlooking a huge space. Over the railing, the far wall was a football field away…and the ceiling…Kim’s head tilted up and up, a couple of stories at least…and down, it was hard to judge, but at least two or three stories down, too….

“Is this an…airplane hangar?” she guessed. Her heart sank. The army had hidden away their displaced community in an airplane hangar? Not in a hotel or even a military barracks, but…this? There wasn’t even any sunlight.

If Kim looked over the side of the balcony, would she see row after row of sad little cots? Or had they set up tents to mark off this huge, drafty space?

She thought miserably of Eddie, who’d worked with the Hmong in California and the Vietnamese in Oklahoma City, allies from a failed war brought to a new home. Had he known about this?

Unsteadily she took slow steps forward and steeled herself to look over the side. There were no tents below, no beds, no crowds of people. There was nothing but the tractor half of a tractor-trailer. She looked back at Bill. “What’s going on? I don’t get it. Is this the right place?”

Bill came to stand beside her at the railing. He pointed down. “This is the right place. Just look.”

There was a grinding sound and a series of sharp clanks and the trailer split into several huge pieces and exploded. Slowly. Glittering. Spinning. Startled, Kim stepped back. And back again, stopping only when she felt the wall behind her. She could still see the slow explosion, though. It was rising slowly, folding and unfolding, splitting and whirling and re-attaching.

 _Are you uncomfortable around rapidly changing or highly advanced technology?_ She only had time to realize that everything she had worried about had been wrong.

The _scrape_ and _grind_ and _snap_ and _clank_ of that strange explosion echoing off the distant metal walls – and then it was done, and she realized that there was face at the top of the origami-folded metal. The face was just above her own eye level, huge and looking down at her with glowing eyes. The voice from the interview said, “Dr. Montgomery, I apologize for startling you. I regret that full disclosure was not possible from the beginning.”

If she had not been pressed against the wall behind her, she would have fallen. She glanced at Bill. He looked smug and not the least worried. Kim swallowed. Her terror was already dissolving into a kind of giddy wonder. _What would your response be, if you met an alien?_ He had told her, he had tested her. “Klaatu barada nicto,” she croaked. 

The giant face less than ten feet from her emitted a sound very like a laugh and said, “It is too late to ask you to take me to your leader.”

She meant to laugh, but the only sound that came out was a squeak. Kim gulped and pointed at Bill. “According to him I work for you.”

Chuckling, Bill clouted her across the shoulder. “Dr. Montgomery, this is Optimus Prime.” He smirked. “You’ve already met.”

“However, it has not been established that you are working for me.”

Kim felt a wave of disappointment. “I signed the paperwork….” She protested weakly.

“I would not hold you to agreements you made while not in full possession of the facts. You are free to reconsider.”

 _No. Never. Aliens! Aliens who spoke English and were willing to participate in ethnography_. But it would look foolish and over-eager to protest that she was ready now, so she only nodded and tried to look reasonable.

“Well,” Bill drawled, “I’ll leave you kids to get to know each other. “ He chuckled. “I’ve got a briefing. Call me when you’re done, Prime.”

And then the door into the regular room was shut and Bill was gone. Kim realized her neck was sore from tilting her head back. Her legs were weak. “Wow,” she said.

“You are disconcerted.”

“Well, yes. A warning would have been nice!”

“We had been providing documentation in advance, but it never truly prepared new personnel. And since rumors of us began to surface on the internet, the advance materials were greeted with disbelief.”

Kim laughed, once, sharply. “They thought you were a hoax?”

“And it embarrassed them when they were introduced and discovered otherwise.”

“Not a help, then.”

“No.”

She continued to look up at him. It was dizzying.

“Would you like to sit down?” he asked.

Kim nodded and stepped to the edge of the catwalk. If she swung her legs off the side she found she could rest her arms on the middle bar of the railing. “Thank you.” And then, to be polite even though the question might make no sense, “are you quite comfortable?”

The mammoth head –it was nearly as tall as she was-- turned. “I meant there is a sitting area over there.”

“Oh.” Her voice squeaked again. “This is fine. Can I ask you -- ” And then a wave of horror washed over her. “What can’t I ask you?” she gasped.

That earned her a long (puzzled?) look. “What you …can’t ask me?”

Kim closed her eyes. There was no advance preparation here. No warning. Who knew what giant aliens – giant robot aliens? giant cyborg aliens? -- might find offensive or blasphemous? Chagnon hadn’t been able to get his informants to tell him their names. Marcy, working up in New York with the Iroquois, kept frustrating her hosts by asking direct questions. Kim herself had not brought up the topic of Green Cards in the field. It was hard enough to follow the rules when you knew them in advance….She groaned. “What topics are forbidden? I’m sorry, asking that may force you to discuss it.”

“Why would topics of discussion be forbidden? Is this a security concern?”

“No. I mean. I mean, what would be offensive...or private…?”

“Ah,” he said. “No. Curiosity is not offensive. I cannot promise that information on all topics will be disclosed, but the question itself will not offend.”

She nodded to show that she had heard him.

“You had a question,” he prompted patiently.

She had a thousand questions. She couldn’t remember the last one. “Your name,” she blurted. “What is it in your own language?”

He bowed his head.

“A bad question?” she suggested. Already?

“No. Only an unusual one.” His face moved – almost – into a sort of smile. “One none of the liaison staff ever thought to ask. I am afraid that the answer is more complicated than you anticipate.”

“You’re free not to answer,” she said automatically. “You’re free not to answer anything – research is voluntary -- ” Oh, god. Ethics! But there wasn’t a ‘human subjects review’ process for aliens! And no one even qualified to judge if human ethical standards would cover the health and privacy of …. The thought died as she stared at the humongous creature before her. What _was_ he, anyway?

Oblivious to the culture shock exploding just before and below him, Optimus Prime was continuing. “In Core Unicode, this is my name.” He emitted a small click and suddenly the air before Kim’s face leapt to life with a string of unevenly spaced red dots.

“Oh,” she said.

“In Glyphs, which are more commonly used for conversation or for non-electronic communications, this is my name.” Now there were two complex figures hanging in the air before her. They swooped like Japanese characters, but connected internally in a way that put her in mind of a South-Asian cursive. “This is the name I was given.” One of the figures grew larger. “It expresses the desire that I would reach my full potential and the hope that that potential would be worthy. Some humans name their children similarly.”

She nodded.

The second glyph expanded. “This is the title, Prime. Perhaps this is not the time to try to explain the subtleties of that.”

“Yes, all right. Later.” She tried to think about what she had just seen. “That first, that was binary, wasn’t it. Ons and offs.”

“Correct.”

“So…are you a _machine_ , then? Do you really…think in binary?”

“Ah,” he said, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “The phrasing of that question could be considered offensive. And the answer is—again--complicated.”

“Sorry,” she said, resisting the urge to hide her face. Reality had far outstripped her ability to even guess what she was supposed to worry about.

“No offense was taken, Dr. Montgomery. It is the comparison to the machines of your planet that could be construed as insulting. We are machines, but we are not completely ‘built’ in the way that you think of it. We are not programmed or controlled externally. We are independent, self-aware, feeling, living beings. You are organic life composed mainly of carbon, calcium, hydrogen, and oxygen. We are cybertronic life composed mainly of iron, silicon, and carbon. We are quite different from you in many ways, but we are alive.”

She leaned back on her palms so she could stare up at the face that was only about five feet above her now. “How many of you are there? Here, I mean. In the community.”

“On this world there are only fifteen of us.”

“That’s hardly any,” she said, surprised.

“It is a great many if you are trying to conceal them from the general population.”

“Oh,” she laughed once. “Yeah. You’re…huge.”

“Currently, I am the tallest. The shortest is slightly smaller than you.”

“Oh. Well. I guess going to the mall is pretty much out?”

He didn’t smile at that. She thought that perhaps he didn’t get the joke but perhaps his mind was on something else. The next thing he said was, “My people are not the only Cybertronians here on earth. There is another faction here, pursuing their own goals. They do not consider human rights as a priority or recognize human claims to planetary ownership.”

Oh. She hadn’t thought. She hadn’t had _time_ to think. Allies, Eddie had said. She would be studying a community of military allies. But when she’d seen this huge, impossible, beautiful alien she had not stopped to ask ‘allies against what?’ A brief, nearly-hysterical giggle escaped. “So they’re here to …eat us? Steal the water? The women?”

“You’ve watched a great deal of science fiction,” he said. “Given how surprising this all must seem, I can understand you bewilderment. However. This is quite serious. The Decepticons are pursuing a rare energy source which your people are not aware of and cannot use. They remain in hiding because if their location were known, the military organizations of Earth would be … decidedly inconvenient for them.”  


“Oh.” She swallowed. “How many of _them_ are there?”

“They have been very quiet for the last two years. We are unsure of their numbers. Perhaps….thirty?”

Kim closed her eyes. Two to one odds. Oh, but wait, the military could make their lives inconvenient. There was nothing to worry about.

“Why have they been quiet?” She asked when she could think clearly enough to participate in their conversation.

“We don’t know. Their leader is missing.... The decepticons here may simply have no place to go or no one who can organize them into an effective plan. We are hunting for them.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Perhaps…now would be a good time to discuss the position?”

This position. Her position. She nodded. “What exactly do I need to do?”

“It will be necessary for you to live in the community and provide your own food. There are facilities suitable for humans. The plumbing works.”

Plumbing. How very practical. “Will I need to bring all the food in advance? For how long?”

“We have been situated in a military base about twenty miles from the nearest town. You will be able to ‘go shopping.’ You will not be deprived of contact with other humans. Your time will be spent observing and having conversations much like this one. It will be very classic ethnography: deep hanging out.”

 _Deep hanging out_. “That’s…that’s Geertz. And before, that was Malinowski. If you know this stuff, what do you need an anthropologist for? I don’t understand.”

There was a soft hiss, like a sigh. “We have tried explaining ourselves to your authorities and to the soldiers assigned to work with us. The results have been…disappointing. Contact has been limited and the attitudes of those assigned to work with us…strategic. Distrust and circumspection on the part of those entrusted with defense promotes survival, but not understanding.” He waited expectantly.

“But I’m a civilian. And all I’ll care about is learning about you. And I’ll tell them.”

“And, eventually, if the need for secrecy is determined no longer necessary, everyone else. I believe a relationship between my people and yours would be mutually beneficial.”

“Oh.” Someone had to explain the giant aliens to the entire world. No pressure there, she thought.

“And we would benefit from having someone to consult about human symbols and idioms.”

“Not hardly, not if you are quoting Geertz.”

“Nowhere does Geertz explain the difference between a hat and a wig. Questions that have not been asked before must be put to someone. Besides, while I am intrigued by the work of Mary Douglass, I do not understand it.”

“Oh. So. We’ll…talk about that, then?” she agreed faintly.

“And perhaps you could explain the disagreement over Chomski’s linguistic theory?”

“Right. Yes. I’ll…I’m not a language specialist, but I can look into that.”

The door behind her opened and Bill came out, his feet making the metal catwalk she was sitting on vibrate. “So, are we good? Have we finally got one?”

She spent the rest of the day and half the night reading files in a little windowless room buried deep in the army base. Paper files: ‘non-electronic representations.’ Regular computers were too vulnerable to attack by the enemy. 

The enemy. And, dear God, _what_ an enemy.

Early the next morning she was on a plane back to the east coast with a map, a list of recommended supplies, and instructions to show up outside of Jasper Nevada in two weeks.

**Chapter 2**

It was the job of a life time, but the hazards wouldn’t be dysentery and giant bugs, but Giant Alien not-Robots who were trying to kill her informants and didn’t care about human collateral damage.

“My superiors are ambivalent about your presence here,” Bill had said on the way to the airport. “Some of them have very high hopes about getting some intel on what makes these guys tick. Sorry.” He winced at the pun. “Most of them don’t like a civilian mucking around in our business. Particularly a civilian anthropologist.” 

“Should I be worried?”

“Nope. Because mostly you’re there to keep the Autobots happy. They want a civilian to do cultural explanations and crap, fine.” He grinned tiredly. “Whatever. You’re a hell of a lot cheaper than their spare parts budget. We’ll keep them happy.” He paused then. “The real issue isn’t _now_ , it’s ten or twenty years from now – I hope – when we go public or get outed by some disaster we can’t cover up and somebody has to explain giant droids from space to John Q Public, if you know what I mean. Hopefully that day is a long way off, which means all the people you and I have to deal with now will be long retired anyway. So don’t sweat what anybody thinks of your work _now_. To the humans, _now_ , you are mostly a political concession.”

 _Humans_ , he’d said. Because some of the people he worked with were humans and some weren’t. Army, US Intelligence, State Department, it didn’t matter because they were all humans (and, apparently, mostly annoying paper-pushers who had to be humored.)

She should have asked him for his personal impression of the Autobots. She should have asked him if he’d ever seen a Decepticon. She should have –

There were a lot of things she should have done, she reflected, driving through Ohio. She’d been too shocked and overwhelmed to think straight.

It was in Ohio that she started looking at cars. Really looking.

 _They_ could disguise themselves as cars and move freely through human society. At least the part of human society that happened on roads. _They_ could be anywhere, while the humans drove right beside them, never noticing.

Except that they couldn’t go _any_ where, could they? They could only go where cars could go: not into churches or shopping malls or movie theaters. The wouldn’t fit inside someone’s home. They couldn’t walk through an arts festival or a fall carnival. If they came to Boston they would spend most of the visit sitting in traffic or cruising for a place to park. _What a weird image the must have of us_ , she thought.

In Indiana she noticed the ambulance. It stayed on 88 for a very long time, behind her, no lights or sirens. As fifty miles turned into one hundred, ‘noticing’ turned into ‘curiosity.’ One of _Them_ turned into an ambulance. The folder had included a photograph.

She hadn’t looked at it closely. She couldn’t tell one ambulance from another: They were white, boxy, and decorated with a caduceus and the word **ambulance** backwards and forwards. She had never given that much thought to cars. She worked in an urban area; most people walked or took the bus.

When she turned off for a rest stop, the ambulance turned off too. Odd. But probably not an alien.

She wondered what would happen if she went over and introduced herself. Probably the EMTs inside would laugh at her.

She wasn’t _sure_ anymore, though.

By the time she stopped for the night somewhere in the vast suburbs of Chicago the ambulance was gone. In the morning there was no sign of it.

All across Illinois she looked, not just watching out for rescue vehicles, but looking at every car and truck and motorcycle that hovered for a more than a few minutes in her rear view mirror. 

They probably weren’t out there, but they could be. What was it like to drive through the teeming masses of human transportation, never showing your true self? Was it lonely? Or were they…afraid?

It was a disguise, the files had said. They scanned vehicles and _changed_ their own physiological structure. Did they miss the bodies they had had before, on their own planet? Did they feel like a different ‘person’ when they changed shape?

Could she ask them? Not at first, anyway. Maybe not ever. That might be _very_ personal. Or maybe not.

Perhaps it would come clear from their daily lives. Maybe they would gripe about missing….No, she couldn’t imagine what they might have looked like otherwise.

After wondering for twenty miles about a green hummer, she saw the semi, and she didn’t wonder any more.

Was her driving being judged? Surely in some ways that would be more resonant to them than her professional credentials. Or perhaps this was a greeting ritual. Or perhaps –

But there was no use speculating, was there? Guessing would not work with aliens – it didn’t work all that well with humans – and the eventual truth would probably be something she couldn’t imagine, let alone predict….

She was just over the Iowa line. She took the first exit with a truck stop – the new kind, large, with chain fast food and probably a porn store or gambling or whatever. She didn’t look too closely; it was the parking lot she wanted. Well, that and food. It was almost time for dinner.

She parked at the edge of the lot, next to a narrow line of unkempt grass, a median that separated the truck stop from the tiny self-storage lot next door. She went inside to use the restroom and get a hamburger meal, and came out again. The red rig was parked in the truck lot, also next to the shaggy, thinning patch of grass. Feeling silly and uncertain, Kim crossed the asphalt.

The truck was silent, still. That solidified her certainty. The one thing Kim did know about trucks was that diesel engines were a pain to start. Real ones were left running.

The aliens – the Cybertronians – would not run on diesel. As far as the army had been able to determine, their energy production (or perhaps, consumption) had as much in common with digestion as with combustion (and not very much in common with either).

Kim sat on the hard, prickly ground and unpacked her supper. “I don’t know if this is allowed…or if it’s really you. If I’m doing this wrong, or if you actually -- ” she choked out a giggle, “ _are_ a truck. You know. Feel free not to say anything.”

Her phone rang. Kim dug it out of her purse and answered it. “ _This location is discreet. Still, security protocols recommend using a cell phone for public discussions when possible_.” It was the voice from the meeting, Optimus Prime. He chuckled. “ _Also, this will save you the embarrassment of being caught ‘talking to yourself’ if someone comes past_.”

Kim swallowed. Hard. She looked up at the truck. It was just out of touching distance. From where she sat on the ground, it loomed. The alien. The alien leader. The most important bit of ethnography in the history of humanity…..

“ _Dr. Montgomery_?”

“Hi,” she squeaked. “Ah. Hello.”

Another chuckle.

Kim swallowed again. “So. Spend much time on highway 80?”

“ _Personally, this is my first transit. Last year Bumblebee patrolled Interstate 80 between Salt Lake City and Reno_.”

Kim frowned. “So…quite a coincidence then, running in to you just now.”

“ _Not at all. I had Jazz reset the parameters on the algorithms that determine the patrol pattern_.”

“Oh.” And then, “Why?”

“ _You are detached to Autobot headquarters. Your safety is our responsibility_.”

“My safety,” she repeated. Was driving to Nevada that dangerous? But she didn’t say that; maybe the worry was traffic accidents or maybe the babysitting was only symbolic or maybe – no. It didn’t matter. She was doing it their way, whatever that way was. “I’m really sorry to put you all to so much trouble.”

“ _We were not troubled. These segments of interstate would have appeared on the patrol roster sooner or later_.”

“Oh. Thank you.” She trapped the phone against her ear with her chin and began to unwrap her hamburger. She had no idea what to say next.

She was sitting next to a very large alien that looked like a truck and she didn’t know what to say. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t prepared –

Nobody _was_ prepared. Not anywhere. Not for this.

Not that that excuse mattered at all. It was her job to ask questions, and she was just sitting here, her duty, her amazing privilege wasted second by second. Her species was depending on her. Her planet. Even the giant alien who had hired her. They were all waiting for her to open her mouth and do her job, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Kim swallowed the bite of hamburger. It was a hard, painful lump going down. “So. You’re from outer space then…?”

“ _No. I am from Cybertron_.” He said something else. Possibly. The sounds slid through her ears and faded without taking a coherent shape in her mind. Then her phone beeped. Surprised, Kim pulled it down and looked. It was an old phone and she didn’t have a data plan on it, but there was a picture on the screen, a single abstract shape.

“That’s the glyph,” she said. It looked like art. “Cybertron. I’ll learn it….” But that was why she was showing her, wasn’t it? She couldn’t learn to speak their language and possibly not to translate the audible parts of it, but she could learn the glyphs. It was part of the job—learn the local language. And _he_ knew that. He knew the job and he was handing her parts of it because he wanted –

She didn’t know what she wanted.

Dully, she took another bite of the hamburger and washed it down with some of the soda. He wanted her to do her job. Her job was to get him talking. “So. Before you said you were on patrol….”

“ _Ye_ s?”

Where did they patrol? And what were they looking for? And did Bill know they were driving around and mixing with the human population hundreds of miles away from their refuge? 

But no. This wasn’t an interrogation. She wouldn’t ask about any of that yet. “What is the coolest thing you’ve seen so far?”

“ _Forgive me. I had not categorized that data by ‘coolness.’ I will have to think_.” The pause for thought, though, was less than a second. “ _I was very impressed by the Hoover Dam. It’s quite a feat of engineering_.”

She nodded. “I’ve never seen it in person.”

“ _I can recommend it_.”

Kim smiled. “What else?”

“ _The Statue of Lliberty was fascinating. To put so much effort and expend so many resources to make a purely symbolic statement…and, of course, the content of the message resonates profoundly_.”

Kim nodded, her phone pressed to her ear, her eyes on the seemingly-lifeless rig that loomed in front of her. The oddness of it all closed in on her again, but she pushed it away and concentrated on the conversation. _“-- the Trans-Siberian Railroad. When one appreciates the difficulties of engineering on your permafrost – and then, of course, after seeing the state of the local roads --_ ”

“Wait? What? I mean, you’ve seen the roads in Siberia?”

“ _Yes_.”

“You’ve been there? I mean you’ve ‘patrolled’….?”

“ _Yes_.”

“But. I mean. How did you get there? Do you fly? Are you a boat too?”

There was a burst of static from the phone. Several seconds later – Just long enough for Kim to worry that the question had been offensive – the answer came. “ _No. I do not fly, and I am not also a boat. There are other methods of transportation. You will encounter them soon enough_.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“ _An apology is not necessarily. The idea of using your oceans as a direct medium of travel was merely startling_.”

“Oh. Not a lot of water on Cybertron, huh?”

“ _No. In addition, the mineral content would make the water unpleasantly corroding. The very idea…. Hm. I have seen your people playing on beaches. The salt water. The…sand…_.”

“You know, we’re sort of mostly _made_ of salt water.”

“ _Humans seem to find it pleasurable_.” He sounded dubious.

“It’s popular.”

“ _Why_?”

“Well…I don’t know why other people like it. I like that the ocean is so big and …complex that you can forget everything else and lose yourself in it.”

“ _You…mean that metaphorically_?” 

For a moment the question didn’t make sense—and then she remembered the occasional person who washed out to sea and drowned. “Yes!”

“ _I think I understand. Thank you, Dr. Montgomery. If you have rested adequately, I believe it is time to resume our journey. You are nearly two hundred miles from the accommodations you have selected for tonight_.”

She opened her mouth to ask how he knew where her hotel reservations were, but instead just said, “You can just call me ‘Kim,’ I think. Unless you have a reason not to.”

“ _That is acceptable_. _We will speak again later_.”

She said an awkward good-bye, gathered up her cold hamburger, and got back in her car.

**Chapter 3**

That night, at a Motel 6 outside of Iowa City, Kim ate granola and oranges in her room while she talked to Optimus about the history of popular music. He had a preference for eighties rock, but was very curious about folk music, ska, and blues. (It turned out he and one of the scouts spent a lot of time on the internet, compiling a database on human culture.)

The conversation ended after about an hour, when her cell battery died. Kim went to the window and looked across the parking lot at the shadow of the big rig. 

The smart thing would have been to go to sleep immediately, but she couldn’t help replaying the conversation in her mind. Finally, she gave in to the restlessness and started to write up the fieldnotes—

\-- and realized halfway through reconstructing the questions he had asked about blue grass (Kim couldn’t answer them) that while music preferences _might_ not be privileged information, before too long she would be collecting information that was sensitive, and a password protections were going to be about as much a barrier as a sheet of tissue paper to a thinking computer with universal wireless.

Oh, boy.

Five minutes with _google_ produced a list of what she’d need to open her laptop and pull the internal wireless card. She had never done anything like that before, but she had had a roommate who did her own computer service….and it wasn’t like she was trying to do something complicated….

She’d have to keep her notes on an isolated computer and the backup on a thumb drive. Which meant she’d need another computer for everything else. Well, fine. She could certainly afford it now.

The next morning the red and blue rig was gone, but a glistening, new, black and yellow Volkswagen Beetle was parked next to Kim’s car. Even if the picture in the briefing packet hadn’t been especially memorable, the Beetle was far too pristine and shiny to be a real car. “Good morning,” she said, unlocking her passenger door and loading her bags.

Her phone shivered and burst forth with a ringtone that she had certainly never loaded: “Morning has broken” by Cat Stevens. There was no voice on the line when Kim opened the phone, so she just smiled and waved discretely.

The Bug paced her all morning.

Used to the Northeast, with towns that ran one into another and shopping centers practically lining the highways, the last two days of open space and unpopulated land was starting to make Kim feel…unsettled. Jasper wasn’t a very large town. That wouldn’t be a problem if the next town was close, but that was beginning to seem unlikely. Opportunities for shopping might be few and far between.

She pulled off and the Bug followed. It parked next to her and Kim stood next to it, pretending to talk into her cell phone. “I’m sorry. I need to get a few things. I won’t take too long.”

The phone answered with “ _Baby, we can do it take the time, do it right_.” Kim gave a startled laugh.

Inside the store, looking at a selection of tiny screwdrivers, the phone beeped the arrival of a text. “WHY WAS THAT PARTICULAR MUSIC SELECTION AMUSING?”

Kim took a deep breath and debated the merits of openness versus discretion. The last thing she wanted to do was discuss sexual innuendo with an alien in text messages. On the other hand, they had access to the internet: the Autobots were probably experts on all sorts of details of human sexuality.

Possibly also on cats….

She carefully typed out, “THE SONG IS ABOUT A MATING RITUAL. FUNNY OUT OF CONTEXT.”

Bumblebee didn’t continue the conversation, so Kim hurried her shopping. She spent almost six thousand dollars on electronics and then crossed the parking lot to the giant, rural somethingMART and spend several hundred more on a list she’d been keeping of things that might be needed. She’d been holding off until she saw the facilities, but now….

Out here you could drive for several hours without passing even a small town. Who knew what the shopping possibilities would be in Jaspar, Nevada?

She shopped as quickly as she could and got back on the road. The Bug shadowed her for the rest of the day. He wasn’t talkative, though.

The next morning the yellow and black car was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was there in 1984. “There” was my living room and I was in it deriding the half-hour toy ad my younger brother insisted we watch. I was there for the kind-of-clever toys, the uncomfortable implications of Roller, the insane out-of-scale madness of Megatron turning into a handgun, and the plots riddled with holes you could fly Cosmos through. 
> 
> But while the plots made no sense, the characters did. The writers didn’t care too much about cause and effect or logic—but they put effort into making the people….
> 
> The comic books were a little better. Transformers Animated was much worse… And then the toy ad dropped a few hundred million on movies that set a new bar for ‘horrible waste.’ 
> 
> I like giant robot stories, and I am tired of irrational crap. I’m usually careful to make only minimal changes to AU stories, but since consistency was never a goal for cannon, I’m going to indulge myself.


	2. Part 2: Xenoethnography

**Chapter 4**

After breakfast, she picked up three jewel-colored motorcycles. They would have stood out even if Kim hadn’t remembered the details from the file. They—it—she— _she?_ —was listed as a scout named Arcee. The three composite aspects each transformed into an upright, incredibly quick, close-quarters attack module that balanced on a single wheel. The three attack modules combined to form a single, bipedal ‘root form’.

How did any of that work? What kind of creature had a consciousness in three places at once?

The trio of motorcycles surrounded Kim’s car—not too closely—and matched speed. Kim kept wanting to turn her head and look at the aspect keeping pace beside her. It was royal blue, sleek, and shiny. It also appeared to have a rider. The file hadn’t explained that. Perhaps a member of the military detachment…?

The curiosity was an itch. The one in front was red. The one behind was purple and blue. She wondered if they were – _she was_ —judging her boring car or her driving. They looked dangerous and fast. Kim sped up a little. They paced her perfectly. They. She.

If you paid attention, you could see it; any change in speed they made was simultaneous. When Kim turned on her blinker to signal a pit stop, they smoothly flowed to the side and dropped behind her.

Focused on her escorts as she’d been the last few days, Kim really hadn’t noticed the geography. South and west had meant warmer, flatter, and dryer, and now it was too obvious to overlook. Things were looking distinctly desert-like now. The landscape seemed almost alien, which was sort of ironic.

It was early afternoon when they left the interstate an hour ahead of schedule. Clustered in front now, Arcee led her through the town of Jasper (smaller, even, than Kim had feared) and its midcentury ranch houses with cactuses instead of lawns. The school buildings were dignified and brick. The hospital was alarmingly small. There were two fast food chains she had never heard of. An unfamiliar grocery chain….

Town gave way to a couple of new strip malls, a huge somethingmart, and a sign for a military base. Arcee turned off—not following the sign for the base—onto a two-lane road that led into the open desert. Kim could see the military base off to the right: fences and metal buildings and a big, cagey tower. It wasn’t as big as she had expected. There didn’t seem to be housing.

About twenty minutes outside of town, the highway curved around a big mesa. The trio of motorcycles turned off onto a two-lane county road that promised access to a state park. Almost at once, though the road divided, and Arcee took the right-hand, unpaved, choice. Kim slowed involuntarily as she followed them through a slight dip and around a boulder. They were headed directly toward the face of the mesa now. There was no sign of any human construction. Or alien. None of the last ten minutes had been in the directions she’d been given.

The ‘middle of nowhere’ wrong turn wasn’t what it appeared to be. The road wasn’t unpaved. It was perfectly smooth and even, just the color of the red-brown desert. 

Kim didn’t see the tunnel into the mesa until the last moment. It wasn’t small (you could drive a semi easily through it). It wasn’t hidden. It was just suddenly—right there, when it hadn’t been before.

 _I don’t know nearly enough about Nevada_ , Kim thought.

***

The tunnel curved in a lazy, downward-slanting S and suddenly opened out into a vast space. It was lit at ground-level and as bright as the day outside had been, but huge empty air above (ten stories? twelve?) was lost in darkness. Kim, already going slowly, stamped hard on the brake.

There were giant robots everywhere. For a moment she could only stare, blinking, before the jumble of color and shine began to resolve into individual figures. Three clustered in front of a set of huge…computer screens? One was sitting on a curved protrusion, some kind of equipment disassembled in its lap. Another was—dancing? There was a yellow and black figure might be Bumblebee. Beside him, nearly twice as tall, a red and blue that was surely Optimus prime.

They had their backs to the entrance, facing an oddly-shaped balcony on which stood a pair of humans.

A tap on the driver’s side window made Kim jump. Gulping, she rolled it down. It was the glistening red Arcee, not a motorcycle now, but a fully revealed alien. The body was willowy and dangerous-looking, like a cross between a ballet dancer and a collection of swords. Two arms each ended in three, delicate, opposable claws. The face at the top had a single glowing, blue eye. “You okay?” she asked.

Kim nodded hard.

Arcee pointed with a glittering claw. “Park at the bottom of the stairs there and we’ll show you where you’ll live.”

Arcee’s three components each balanced on a single wheel. Kim could not drag her eyes away. How did they not fall? But—impossible unicyclists or not—they moved fluidly, somehow hopping up the stairs to the broad balcony that overlooked the wide cavern floor.

There was an argument going on at the top. Kim recognized one of the men as Bill Fowler, the man who had mediated the job interview. The other man—shorter, older, balder--was in a military dress uniform. On the other side of the argument was (apparently) Bumblebee, looking up at the balcony and Optimus Prime, looking down at it. None of them paid any attention to Arcee and Kim rushing past.

At the back of the balcony was a human-sized set of double doors. They led into a musty hallway with hanging florescent lights that came on when Arcee’s red component touched a switch. “This level was offices,” the red component began. Without interruption, the blue component continued, “Fixit uses the big room half way down for storage, but most of us can’t fit in here at all.” “Upstairs,” said the component behind Kim, “there are barracks. Not as nice as the ones in human country—but also not as weird.”

The stairwell did lead to a stark corridor faced in cinderblocks rather than stone. The small rooms were each outfitted for four occupants—two sets of bunk beds and not much room in between. It was creepily empty and dusty. There was a communal locker room and shower down the hall. It was also creepy and dusty, but as promised, the water worked. 

Kim selected the room at the top of the stairs and dragged one of the bunk beds out to make room. When she looked around for Arcee, she found the three sections already coming up the stairs with loads of boxes.

It took two more trips, hurrying up and down the stairs, to empty out the car. Kim carefully ignored the argument still happening on the balcony. The two humans had been joined by a third in a camouflaged military uniform. The alien side had been joined by a shining silver figure noticeably taller than Bumblebee.

The third time she passed them, Bill stepped into her path, took her by the arm, and steered her firmly to the railing at the edge of the mezzanine. “What’s wrong with this one?” he demanded loudly. “You want to get to know regular humans. I get that! I’m all for that! Well, _here_ is a human civilian who has nothing to do but answer your questions.”

The sleek, silver alien that Kim couldn’t place stepped forward and lifted his hands in a recognizable gesture of appeal. It did not seem to have a single straight line anywhere; if there were ever a mechanical being she would have guess was feminine, it would be this elegant figure, but none of the four Autobots listed as female had looked anything like this. “Now Bill, we appreciate all your help. And making an expert available to us, that’s gonna make a big difference.” Kim blinked. The tone was warm, earnest, the accent slightly southern, the body language overtly friendly. How could an alien manage to be so convincingly, so deliberately charming? “But I think maybe you’re missing the point.”

“The point,” said the bald man in the dress uniform, “is that hanging around Jasper for recreational people-watching is a security risk.”

Bumblebee played a few bars of comically melodramatic music. Optimus silenced him with a look, and Bumblebee lowered his eyes and took a step backward. The Autobot leader sighed and leaned down slightly. “I’m sorry General, but you are incorrect. The issue is this: Are we prisoners on this base or not?”

The bald man in uniform scowled. “You know damn well you’re not prisoners!”

“Then we will give your advice due consideration. Your concern is appreciated, General. Were there other matters you wished to discuss?” He paused just long enough to be polite and then turned away, collected Bumblebee, and withdrew.

The silver stranger folded his arms and leaned against the side of the balcony. “I really think you’re worrying too much,” he said in a confidential tone. “Bumblebee likes humans, but he’s careful. Driving around town, he’s not a security risk.”

“He’s already been seen, Jazz,” Bill protested.

“A child. Who promised to keep quiet and wouldn’t be believed anyway.”

The third man, the one in pale camouflage, leaned over to Kim and whispered, “So, you the psychologist?”

“Anthropologist,” she whispered back, fascinated by Jazz’s political wrangling.

“For pete’s sake, Jazz,” Bill snapped. “We know it isn’t just him. How many times a week do you sneak out?”

  
“Oh. Like Indiana Jones.” Wait, what? Kim blinked and turned to look at the guy in camouflage. He grinned affably, as though the argument going on beside him weren’t the most interesting thing he had ever seen in his life. “You know? Indy?” he coaxed.

For a moment, the sheer stupidity was too much to comprehend. “Like Indy ever had it this good,” she hissed, pointing at Jazz and trying to remember the file. There had just been so many and it had been over two weeks ago—

Jazz and the general and Bill were all looking at her. Bill winced slightly. “Jazz, General Moershower, Captain Lennox, this is Dr. Montgomery, our anthropologist. Or, to be exact, _their_ anthropologist.”

The general and Captain Lennox shook hands politely. Jazz bowed with a flourish and said warmly, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, little lady.” 

Kim almost—almost—felt offended. But he was nearly three times her own height. Even if he understood enough about sexist nuance to be patronizing on purpose, ‘little lady’ was technically accurate. “Likewise, ginormous alien,” she answered faintly.

***

It was Jazz who showed her where to park her car for long-term storage. He transformed into a Porsche—a car Kim had never seen in person before this alien impersonated one—and led the way through a short, arched passage into another vast room, this one filled with large _things_ Kim couldn’t make out.

They crossed a room the length of a football field with railroad tracks down the center (railroad tracks?), through a short, low tunnel that was barely tall enough for the cars, and into a dim store room packed with perfectly normal-looking crates.

Kim made one last check to be sure she had everything out of the car, decided not to lock it, and walked back out of the tunnel to the railroad-track room where the Porsche was waiting. He transformed in a burst of spinning origami and dropped delicately into a crouch so that his face was at her eye level. “So? How do you like us so far?”

Kim looked up at him. The face was recognizably human-styled: two round, illuminated blue eyes, a shape like a nose, plates that moved to form expressions, a—more or less—mouth that seemed to be grinning. “Best job ever,” she managed.

He stood up and gestured broadly. “How d’you like our secret base? Every human’s dream, right?”

“It’s…a wonderful secret base. I couldn’t imagine better.” That was true, but it wasn’t a good answer. This was the _field_. Jazz was an _informant_. She was supposed to be doing ethnography, taking advantage of every chance to learn something. “Why are there train tracks? Does one of you turn into a train?” she sounded squeaky and desperate, even to herself.

The laugh that greeted this was so light and warm and _human_ that it had to be an affectation. “No, we do not have a train. Those rails are left over from when this was a weapons testing facility during the Cold War.”

Kim looked around in surprise. Humans had built this place? And then what he had said sank in. Weapons testing? In Nevada? “It’s not radioactive, is it?”

Jazz sobered and started walking—slowly—back the way they’d come. “Just delivery systems. The area we use for assembly and command was actually built as a missile silo, but right about the time they finished it the technology changed and it was too small. Pretty rad, eh?”

‘Rad?’ Did people still say rad? Kim had never hung out with people who said rad. “The radest. What do you all do in here?”

“You could call it a ‘rec room,’ sort of,” he said, gesturing broadly. “Games that can be played in a small space or one-on-one training. More storage up the track there, but the ventilation is not great so we don’t go back there much. Freight elevator that way. That little door leads to the NEST base next door.” NEST; soldiers working under the terms of the Nonbiological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty.

The room with _large things_ in it was slightly less disorienting now that she wasn’t looking at it from a moving car. “What is this—oh!” One of the huge shapes resolved itself into a chair carved from stone as the occupant stood up and turned toward them. The sizes of the furniture varied, and some of the ‘seats’ or ‘tables’ seemed tiered, but now she could see that the room was some sort of lounge with seating.

“Dr. Montgomery, this is Windblade,” Jazz said. “She’ll show you around.”

“Call me Kim, please,” she said quickly, stepping back and looking up to get a better view of Windblade. The pictures in the file had not done her justice. She was noticeably taller than Jazz and less curvy, but more elaborately decorated. Primarily red and black with light blue and yellow highlights, she seemed to be wearing a very extravagant helmet. Her face looked like white enamel rather than etched metal. And she might have wings.

“So this is the project,” she said. “It looks just like any other human.”

“Aw, now. Don’t judge before you give it a chance. You might like humans if you got to know them.”

“I know plenty. And there is nothing wrong with NEST. They know their place.”

“Where’s their place?” Kim asked.

Windblade looked down at her. “Colleagues. They are excellent colleagues. But not friends. And not neighbors.”

“Have a great talk, you two,” Jazz said with such cheerful obliviousness that—again—it had to be an act. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Windblade shrugged her wings and vented in a long sigh. “This is the commissary. Do humans make a social activity out of consuming nutrients? We have that in common, although I understand you take in materials much more frequently than we do.” She leaned down slightly and her eyes seemed to spin clockwise. “And—is it true that everything goes into the same valve? Never mind, I don’t think I want to know.” She gestured toward the fall wall. “If we had more space, different sorts of constituents would be replaced in different milieus. Can you see from down there?”

That seemed a thoughtful question, and Kim thought perhaps Windblade was warming up to her—until, without waiting for an answer, a large hand lifted Kim up and set her on the table. Kim frantically steadied herself on the table’s tier and said, “You speak English very well.”

It was probably for the best that Windblade did not appear to notice her rudeness. “It is a downloadable file. Jazz made the first one, but he always indulges too much in colorful local metaphors. Cliffjumper curates it now.”

Oh. A downloadable file. It would be.

“At any rate, our—you don’t have a word closer than ‘food,’ although I think your ‘food’ is also full of impurities your bodies can’t use and must be excreted—our food is in the tanks over there.” She pointed to a row of narrow cylinders arranged against the wall and named them off: crude oil (for long polymer chains), gasoline, two kinds of jet fuel, acetone, coolant, another kind of coolant, and energon.

Energon, a word from the file. Kim had been too absorbed by the names and descriptions of the aliens to puzzle it out. “What’s that?”

The question earned her an impatient look. “Energon? It’s everything.” Windblade folded her arms and her wings slanted sharply upward. “It’s a power source not compatible with your technology. It’s necessary for healthy nanoactivity. It prevents waste accretion. In large amounts it allows an unframed protoform to develop.”

“Unframed?”

Windblade considered for a moment, then stretched out her arm and flexed her wings. “My frame is everything added to my protoform. My core, under my struts and armor. An unframed protoform is…” she shifted restlessly. “A sparkling. An infant.” She turned back to look at the tanks and said more softly, “We have enough energon to live on. Enough to fight a war, even. And the situation is better here on earth than it’s been for vorns. But there isn’t enough to bring forth a new generation, even if we had the circumstances to raise one.” She leaned down and looked at Kim directly. “Perhaps you can imagine—this is kind of a sore point for some of us. My advice—my request--is that you don’t mention energon or sparklings casually. It is not a subject for disrespectful comment or prying questions from outsiders.”

“Thank you. I’ll be careful.” Perhaps a change of subject was needed. “Why two kinds of coolent?”

“Cybertron is not afflicted with the…interesting weather you have here on earth. Our normal coolant gums up and freezes at negative seventeen degrees Celsius. Our systems have to be specially adapted for arctic work.”

Windblade turned away briskly, headed for the far door. Kim had to run to keep up. “The next area is labeled ‘bedroom’ on the schematic. There aren’t any berths in it. Another of many luxuries we can’t afford. We power down for defragging and system maintenance in our alt forms.” The next room was dimly lit, only about four stories tall, and probably only about fifty feet across. There was a blue-green pickup truck parked not far from the door.

Feeling like an intruder on someone’s nap, Kim hurriedly backed away. “Is it crowded?” she asked when they were a little distance away. “I don’t see how you all fit in there.”

“Well, if we spent a third of our lives unconscious like you do, it wouldn’t work. We only power down about five joors an orn.”

Kim had no idea what that meant.

Windblade sighed. “Six and a half hours out of every 85. Roughly. Come on. Ratchet wants to see you next.”

Windblade moved swiftly, but with surprisingly little noise or vibration for her size. Kim ran after her.

It seemed like a very long way. They left the commissary. They crossed the assembly room that used to be a missile silo. On the far side of the cavern, past the tunnel from the outside, around the curve of the balcony, was a broad, high passage. An alcove to the side—small by Transformer standards but still the size of a basketball court—was marked off with a yellow line painted on the floor. Windblade waited beside it.

“This is the infirmary,” Windblade said. “There are two rules for humans. Come at once when summoned. Don’t cross the line without permission.”

Kim looked at the area marked off by the yellow line. It was full of huge things, geometric and abstract shapes that might be furniture or medical equipment or storage or even people. One of the huge shapes turned around and strode—heavy, graceful, dignified—to the boundary. It was red and white and yes, Kim could make out part of the word ‘ambulance’ on his hip. This was Ratchet, their doctor.

“Thank you, Windblade. It was gracious of you to bring him.”

Windblade glanced down at Kim. “Her, I think.”

“Whatever.” Ratchet waved Windblade away, looked down at Kim, and sighed. It was a vocal sigh, expressive and clearly overburdened. Kim cringed inwardly. 

Ratchet bent down and held out a giant ‘hand’ like something out of a horror movie. There were pincers. And pointy probes. And was that a tiny suction cup at the end of one pencil-thin ‘finger’? Or was it a lens? “All right, let’s have it.”

“Um…what?” Kim asked.

“Whatever antiquated piece of junk you use for communication,” he said impatiently.

Kim quickly dug her phone out of her purse and handed it over. Ratchet frowned at it—and yes, his face was assembled of tiny plates, but that was a _frown_ , complete with furrowed brow—and said, “You’re kidding. No, never mind. Go sit on the shelf.” He pointed at the rear wall, where, some twelve feet off the ground a six-foot shelf was carved out of the stone. The shelf ran the length of the room, and in several places broad steps were cut into the side leading up.

Glancing nervously back at Ratchet, who had popped the phone case open, Kim hurried to comply. Normally, climbing steps without a railing would have made her nervous, but Ratchet was scarier than the height. “Um, can I ask what you’re doing? To my phone.”

“You can ask, but it’s unlikely you will understand the answer.”

“Oh,” she said. And then, since they were half a basketball-court apart, a little louder: “Oh.”

“Do you wear a headset?”

“Um, no.” This, whatever it was, might take a while. She sat down on the edge of the shelf, feet dangling, and wished she had brought her oversized field purse. The small personal bag she had carried for the drive wasn’t big enough for her notebook or a bottle of water. She really should be taking notes on this. Whatever this was.

“I’m going to configure the short-range radio for text display.” He looked up and said very slowly and patiently, “That means that anything we transmit on an open channel will appear as words on the screen. Also, if anything is said to you on a private channel. Hm. And I better expand the memory. Who is your service provider? Never mind, I found it. That account is closed now.”

“Uh—what?”

“It wasn’t secure. Not that the system architecture DARPA set up for us is perfect, but it’s better.”

“But-but I need a working phone. I have relatives I need to talk to sometimes!”

“The phone number still works.”

Kim doubted that. She could see her phone. It was spread out on a work surface in tiny pieces. “Oh, my god,” she whispered.

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything about the image quality. Your optical technology just isn’t compatible with ours. I suppose I could rebuild the whole unit from scratch….”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Kim said faintly.

“I hate shoddy workmanship.”

“Sometimes you have to make do with what you have….” Kim said, thinking of her contacts list and hoping the alien mad scientist would stop trying to improve her stuff.

Ratchet looked up sharply and stared at Kim for a long moment. “Yes,” he said. “That is often the way of things.” His hands a blur, Ratchet reassembled the phone. “This is the best I can do. Here come take it. And you’d be better get going; you’re already late.”

Kim scrambled down the steps. “Late for what?”

“Optimus is waiting for you on the mesa.”

“On the mesa? Outside? How do I get there?” She took the phone he held out. It didn’t look different.

“Well, you could take the elevator on the mezzanine.”

There was an elevator on the mezzanine? But Kim only nodded and retreated. 

***

There was, indeed, an elevator on the mezzanine. She would feel foolish about not noticing it, but it wasn’t like she’d had a chance to look around. The doors shut behind her and she slumped against the wall. Waiting. Her new boss was waiting. She had kept him waiting.

Well, damn.

It was probably too late for him to change his mind and hire someone else.

The elevator was fast. Kim barely had time to put the phone away and take a deep breath before the doors opened and she was blinking in sunlight.

The top of the mesa wasn’t empty. There were sheds—or possibly other elevator stands—scattered here and there. To the left was a helicopter pad. To the right was a small forest of solar panels. And directly in front of her, sitting on a boulder at the rim, the massive red and blue form of Optimus Prime.

She could do this. “Sorry I’m late,” she called cheerfully.

“I am in no hurry. We will take the time we need.”

It seemed like another very long walk to reach his boulder at the edge. Kim decided not to try to carry on the discussion by yelling, but made the best speed she could. There was a much smaller rock beside the large rock Optimus was sitting on. As a seat, it was hard and lumpy. That was not the kind of consideration a giant metal alien was likely to notice.

“It’s nice up here,” Kim said. It was. The air was warm and dry. She could see the fences and buildings that made up the military base. In the distance was the valley that held the town of Jasper.

“According to my research, a healthy human environment requires exposure to ‘fresh air’ and solar radiation. I propose to hold our daily meetings here, if that meets with your approval.”

“Oh. Yeah, this is great. Um, we have a daily meeting?”

“It has been uploaded to your phone.”

Kim checked. Her calendar had been updated with: _Prime, 17:30-18:30, mesa_. There was also a new blinking icon in the corner. Kim touched it, and a huge list of text messages sprang to life. “Oh. My god. You are all talking on a wireless network all the time.” This was what Ratchet had meant.

“Yes. It is a main communications medium for us.”

“Are you talking to someone now?”

“Jazz has just transmitted an updated patrol schedule. Ratchet is complaining about the quality of the most recent shipment of silicone jell.”

Kim’s hands tightened around her phone. “How many conversations can you have at once,” she asked in a small voice.

“Six, if the topics are not complex.”

Humans couldn’t multitask effectively on even two activities at once. “And I have to be looking at my phone to be aware of any of it. Is it like—dealing with a whole species with a—a disability? Making do with electronic prosthetics?”

With astonishing speed, Optimus flowed off the boulder to crouch on the dusty rock. His broad hands bracketed the stone Kim was sitting on and his chin nearly rested on the ground. His eyes—concentric arrays of tiny lenses set back beneath the armor plating—were nearly level with hers. “I do not judge your species by the standards of mine.” He didn’t speak loudly, but his voice seemed to shake Kim’s bones. He seemed vehement—and, perhaps, distressed as well. 

What were the odds he actually hadn’t noticed how tiny, how fragile, how slow, how impossibly deaf and blind her species must be in comparison to his? “How are you going to help it?” Kim asked, careful to sound neutral. Despite his size and strangeness, despite the fact that just by existing he loomed, this was a conversation she understood. It was a conversation that was always hard. “If you knew enough about my species to judge us by our own standards, you wouldn’t have needed to hire me.”

The great head dipped slightly, his gaze shifting away. Optimus was close enough to touch. Kim wondered what ‘conversational distance’ was for giant mechanical aliens—if conversational distance was even a thing for people who could apparently have intimate conversations over wifi while hundreds of feet apart. Kim felt a wave of sympathy. “It’s okay. We have a lot in common, and it is going to be complicated to sort out our differences. Sometimes, yeah, there’s going to be some—some physiological-centrism. It’s just part of the process. For both of us.”

“The process…is more difficult than I anticipated.” The vibration of his voice was not accompanied by a movement of air or a scent of breath.

Kim stood up and took a step forward, though they were already inside what a human would consider personal space. “I guess…you haven’t done this before, have you?” 

“No. Yours is the first species we have encountered that is so similar to our own.”

 _Oh, boy_. Kim felt a surge of sympathy and then trepidation. She was going to have to teach him to be a xenoethnographer—when she had less than a day’s head start on that herself. “This is going to be really hard,” she said. “It is starting to seem like you’re not just my informant. I’m going to be yours. That’s…tricky. Those can be very… intense relationships. There are going to be days when you get very angry with me. And days when no matter how hard we try we just can’t understand each other. And days when you are just so sick of the whole thing you can’t stand the sight of me. It’s going to be _hard_. Some days it will all seem empty and pointless.”

“You expect this for yourself?” he asked, easing back slightly. “And yet, you have chosen to do this? To come here among aliens and enter into relationships that are painful even with those of your own species?”

Kim smiled. “Well, I know you’ve read Malinowski’s journals. That’s the job,” she said. But no, that wasn’t enough, not with all those tiny lenses aimed at her, waiting for her to say something useful or at least hopeful. “This is the most important thing I’ll ever do—The most important thing I can imagine anyone doing.”

Slowly, he shifted back and resettled himself in a seated position on the uneven ground. He was silent for several minutes, staring out over the array of solar panels.

Kim waited. She had practice at giving people time.

“Honesty is necessary between us,” he said at last.

“If this is going to work, yeah. But…rapport takes time. It’s okay if you aren’t ready to tell me everything now.”

“The survival of my species and yours depends on our ability to drive the Decepticons from this planet. We are badly outnumbered. Our supplies are not…abundant. Your species is distressingly fragile and prone to social fragmentation. I am…not certain we will succeed.”

Would the Decepticons wipe her species out? Or just enslave it? Did they want the planet _for_ something? Or was the plan to destroy it out of spite because their enemies were here? Kim ground her teeth together, wishing she could avoid thinking about it now, in front of the alien who was her boss, her informant, her student….

Optimus rose, slower and more heavily than before. “You have had a long journey. We have asked enough of you today. I’m sure you would like to put your quarters in order.”

It was an abrupt dismissal, and the timing worried her. Perhaps her reaction had been wrong. But, while it was possible that she had somehow miss-stepped, it would be a bad idea to assume she had. He could have six conversations at once; something important might have come up. And, of course, the conversation wasn’t one it would be fun to continue. “Thank you,” she said, numbly. “Have a goodnight.”

“You as well.”

**Chapter 5**

The next morning, she entered the balcony to find the three minicons waiting for her. Two were so similarly framed and painted that it took several days to tell them apart. The other was Fixit, an individual so awkward and unusual—both from a human viewpoint and in comparison to the other Transformers she had met so far—that Kim wondered if he were deliberately rejecting human culture.

Slipstream and Jetstorm were ‘students’ of Drift, someone Kim had not yet met, but whom they said was very dignified and stuffy. Fixit was an engineer, something quite different from a physician—apparently—although he could not clearly explain why. All of them were eager to take Kim through the human-sized ‘back way’ to the NEST base next door.

Their size (none of them taller than Kim herself) and enthusiasm made it seem to her as though the three of them were comparatively young. But surely frames were _built_ rather than grown. Why would time affect size? It soon became clear, though, that their interest rose from boredom rather than youthful curiously. None of them had alt forms that could blend in with Earth vehicles. They didn’t get out much. 

The minicon shortcut was a dimly-lit, dank, concrete-walled corridor about two hundred feet long. It let out into another decommissioned missile silo, this one filled with catwalks, human-sized computers, and the US Army. The small encampment of metal buildings and wire fencing that Kim had seen on the drive in was clearly only a small part of the operation.

Fixit, Slipstream, and Jetstorm seemed to know the NEST base very well. They gave her a tour of the motor pool, the barracks corridor, and a rec room where they showed off their prowess at pool and air hockey. The two matching ones were almost obsessed with a room that held a tiny, indoor garden. They earnestly discussed growlights, flowers, soil acidity, aphids, and the acidy of cherry tomatoes. Kim, running a bemused finger over a perfect yellow rose petal asked, “Why is this even here?”

“We had a botanist for a while,” one said. “He was checking to see if we had a deleterious effect on plants.”

“I miss him,” said the other. “Even Drift liked him.”

They took her to the little dining facility. Jetstorm (or Slipstream) was disappointed to discover that civilians ate no differently than military personnel. The military personal themselves—it wasn’t by any means a large base, but there still seemed to be a few hundred of them—were busy but pleasant. A few introduced themselves. One gave her a folder –actual paper printouts because any digital code humans could use Decepticons could break—containing the same basic information Bill Fowler had shown her before. A busy civilian who said she was a ‘bridge technician’ invited Kim to ‘stop by sometime’ and asked half a dozen questions Kim didn’t have answers to yet before bustling away.

Kim would have liked to have talked longer: people already working with the Autobots might have good ideas about which issues to explore first. Just as the conversation was getting interesting, though, a terse summons from Ratchet appeared on her phone. She was wanted in the infirmary. Immediately.

It was a long way back to Transformer territory. Kim ran for most of it. Jetstorm and Slipstream transformed into spheres and rolled alongside, easily keeping up with her top speed. Several times they rushed ahead and then doubled back. Kim would have sighed if she’d had the breath.

The infirmary had three humans in it, middle aged men seated on folding chairs along the rear shelf. Ratchet voiced a soft snort of disdain, scoped her up, and deposited her next to the fourth chair. The sudden motion was smooth and precise but as swift and scary as any theme park ride she’d ever been on.

“Today,” Ratchet said, speaking pointedly to Kim while ignoring the three men, “I start orienting another set of mechanics. This is the ninth batch, and to be frank, I’m not very optimistic about their chances. They’ve sent me civilians this time.” He shrugged. “Maybe that will make a difference.”

Kim unfolded the chair, set it as far back from the edge as it would go, and dug her notebook out of the field bag. “What happened to the last batch?” She asked, glancing at the three men. One looked eager. One looked nervous. One was shaking.

“The last batch,” Ratchet said with a tragic air, “went the way of all the batches. I once had a trainee that lasted eight months. A network architect. She seemed very promising. Or he. In general, humans don’t really have what it takes for this sort of work.”

“I’m not a mechanic,” Kim said.

“You’ll need a basic orientation anyway. It will save time to consolidate.” He stepped back and the lights dimmed slightly. A three-dimensional image of Ratchet himself blossomed in the air over the shelf. “This is a mech. The plural is mecha, which is more than most humans can bother to remember. A mech has two primary components, the frame and the protoform.” 

The image opened down the middle and the inside floated out. The inner section was not even a fourth the size of the outer shell, and stripped of its armor looked very fragile. It was silver and grey and black and very hard to focus on properly. It looked a little like a mermaid…or a starfish? Ratchet spun the image and it began to look a little like a squid. Kim swallowed dryly. “So. That’s what you look like,” she ventured.

Ratchet made an impatient noise. “No, _this_ is what I look like.” He tapped himself on the chest. “ _That_ is what my protoform looks like, but my frame is not less ‘me’ then my protoform. The protoform structures and maintains the exterior armor and chassis. A healthy, well integrated frame is an extension of the protoform. Now, the protoform is not undifferentiated. The third secondary processor--”

And that was the last part of that lecture Kim understood. She took diligent notes, but could make no sense of them afterwards. Ratchet continued for four hours before dismissing Kim and directing the engineers to a work surface for a practical demonstration.

Relieved (and aware of the shameful irony of that) to escape this unparalleled access to alien secrets, Kim raced back to the barracks (how small and narrow they already seemed, after the big open spaces inhabited by the mecha) for a toilet and a bottle of cold water from her mini-fridge. She would have to have a word with Ratchet (privately, because embarrassing him would sour a relationship she needed) about the human needs for breaks. Assuming he didn’t already know, and after four years it was likely that he did.

Huh.

Perhaps he was driving away the human trainees on purpose? Kim listed speculations about the trainee situation while stuffing down a granola bar. She was digging through a box of groceries for some applesauce when her phone buzzed with a meeting request from someone named Ironhide. Kim stuffed a bottle of water and another granola bar into her canvas bag with her notebook and ran back down the stairs to the balcony.

Ironhide turned out to be large-framed and the sort of matte-black that classic science fiction waxed poetic about. Chin-level with the railing, his face was in a position for Kim to take a good look as she hurried across the balcony. His eyes seemed to be single, slightly luminous, bubbly lenses the size of saucers. His face plating, unlike Optimus and Ratchet, overlapped like shingles rather than fitting together like puzzle pieces. After Ratchet’s lecture, she couldn’t help wondering about the protoform beneath the parts she could see. “Hi,” she said.

“Dr. Montgomery. I thought it would be better to get to the safety and security orientation sooner rather than later. I understand you’re eager to get to work, but I hope you’ll agree that this is important.”

“Absolutely,” Kim answered. She couldn’t imagine what he was talking about, but when informants volunteered that they wanted to tell you something important, you agreed and listened.

“You’re the only organic living on our side. The particular protocols that apply to you haven’t been tested, so if something strikes you as unfeasible, speak up.” His accent seemed to be southwestern: Texas? Arkansas? “Some humans don’t like to be picked up, but it’s a long walk for someone your size. Will you accept a ride?” He lifted a hand to the top of the stairs.

For a moment, Kim could not make herself step forward. She hadn’t liked either of her experiences being lifted so far. Ironhide was here to give her a lecture on safety, though, right? He probably wouldn’t drop her. She took a seat on the cool, smooth palm.

“I understand human memory is kind of sketchy. If you need me to repeat something, ask. This information may be necessary to your survival.”

Moving slowly and carrying her close to his chassis, Ironhide conducted another tour of the base. He pointed out generators and power cables. He detailed emergency exists and evacuation routes. He showed her acceptable hiding places if ‘shelter in place’ were to be necessary. He inspected her sneakers and detailed the importance of avoiding smooth footgear on lofty furniture that towered above stone or concrete floors.

There was a washrack in an alcove off the sleeping room. Kim must never go there unsupervised: most bathing was done with water and mild detergent, but some detritus required a strong solvent that blistered human skin.

It was also important to avoid skin-contact with energon. While an injury severe enough to causa a leak was unlikely at base, if she saw anything leaking out of anyone, it would be best to get clear.

It was a long, detailed survey of hazards Kim hadn’t even imagined existed. Throughout, Ironhide was patient, meticulous, and scrupulously polite. His regional accent, like Jazz’s, could not be natural. Kim wondered how much his way of speaking reflected his own personality and how much was a persona he’d adopted to make interfacing with humans easier. And then she felt bad about wondering that: what had she expected? That they would talk like Robot from Lost in Space? Anyone learning a second language had to adopt an accent.

But with so many to choose from, why this one? Had he picked up from one of the troops on the NEST side? Had he asked for a language file tailored to folksy but serious?

The puzzle of his personality distracted her just a little too much and she had to ask him to repeat a warning about coming around corners too quickly.

“It’s best if you come through the middle of doors and tunnels and look carefully before you cross a threshold. Not everybody tracks by infrared and some of the rock around here is dense enough to throw it off anyway.”

“We’re talking about not getting stepped on,” Kim squeaked.

“Or run over,” he agreed. “But as long as you have an unobstructed view of one of us, we will know exactly where you are. It won’t be a problem. Corners, though….”

“But—what if you aren’t looking in my direction?” Really, it was shocking this had not occurred to her before. Events were just moving so fast--

“Looking? You mean _optical_ sensors? Oh, no. Nobody tracks humans with those. Your electromagnetic field is tiny and weak, but we’re all calibrated for them with triple redundancy. And if there is any confounding interference or reflections, we spot-check with sonar. We always know exactly where the humans are. The only injury we’ve ever had outside of training was Bluth, and really, that was more a miscommunication than an accident.”

“What happened to Bluth?” Kim asked, wishing she didn’t have to.

“It was a meeting. Jazz went to hand him something, but Bluth looked up and saw that arm coming at him fast and stepped backwards –off a table and nine feet to the floor. Busted both legs.”

“Shit.”

“Jazz had hysterics. Ratchet had to sedate him.”

“Right. Yeah.”

***

There wasn’t enough time between Ironhide’s safety tour and the standing meeting with Optimus to eat, and Kim was unsure how rude it would be to eat not only in front of someone who would not be bringing his own snack but with whom she could not offer to share. Worse, what if human eating was gross by mech standards?

It was that last possibility that convinced her to grab a tuna-and-crackers handy-meal to take with her. If, after four years, Optimus Prime was somehow bothered by an organic body function humans did three or four times a day they shouldn’t waste any more time getting him over it.

She found him on the mesa, gleaming almost blindingly in the sunlight, checking the anchoring on a satellite dish. “Can’t you be seen up here?” Kim asked. “If someone in Jasper had a telescope…?” Red and blue and so _shiny_. Kim dug sunglasses out of her purse.

“The plateau is concealed by camouflage protection, like the vehicle entrance from the ground.”

“Cool alien technology?” Kim asked. There was nothing handy to sit on, so she brushed aside some pebbles and sat down. She should get a folding chair for up here, whenever she got to go shopping again.

“Cool Cybertronian technology,” he said, turning away from the dish and lowering himself to sit on the ground beside her.

“I missed lunch. Is there a protocol for eating in front of you?”

“No.” And then, “Is it permitted to ask questions about food?”

“Heh. Food is such a safe topic humans use it for relationship building. But you can ask me about anything.”

“Humans have many different cultures and live in very different environments, so one would expect that food customs and tastes would vary by society. But even within communities, individual preference seems to vary widely. Does this primarily result from capitalist competition by different food product purveyors?”

Kim clenched down on a laugh long enough to keep the water she was drinking from shooting out her nose. “Yeah, I can see that would be how it looks from the outside,” she said when she was finally able to speak. “But marketing just takes advantage of the fact that we already varied a lot in what we like to eat.”

“The amount of choice you have does seem bewildering. There are so many things your species can consume, such a broad range of materials you must obtain. And I have noticed a tendency to eat the inedible, even hazardous chemicals.”

“You are thinking of alcohol?” Kim asked, tearing into the tuna kit.

“I am thinking of palm kernel oil, fructose, sodium nitrate—the list is actually rather long.”

“Yeah….That part is capitalism.”

“It’s not healthy.”

“Not all humans know. Eating is complicated for us too.” She winced. “And not all humans care.”

Kim had collected a list of questions of her own—what exactly were the Decepticons doing on Earth? What had the war been about to begin with? Why did mechs have mouths? What did a human magnetic field look like and why was that the go-to for keeping track of them? What the hell was Ratchet’s problem, anyway?—but she mentally set them aside and spent the hour giving the best answers she could to the endless river of obvious, trivial, superficial questions Optimus seemed to have been saving up. 

Kim found her answers growing more careful, more gentle. Four years, surrounded by seven billion creatures who seemed so inexplicable, so arbitrary, so irrational, so cruel—Damn. Even with their own enclave to retreat to, the culture shock must be awful.

Not all of the answers she gave were reassuring, but Kim did her best to be honest and accurate. He thanked her—with grave politeness—when they were done. Kim realized, as she gathered up her things to head back to the elevator, that he did not appear to be bothered by the actual eating after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I deeply loathed about the movies was what Bey did to Ironhide and Jazz. I'm not talking about pointlessly killing them. The character assignation was way before they died. Although I admit the initial 'mommy car' look didn't suit Ironhide. Although I admit I was tempted to keep it anyway.   
> The best Ratchet is TFP. Fixit's disability is very interesting--but playing it for comic relief not so much.


	3. Part 3: Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

**Chapter 6**

Because her informants had a diurnal cycle of eighty-five and a half hours, there wasn’t a noticeable routine to Kim’s days. Some mornings she stepped into the silo and there were autoboots standing at the big displays in the work area, playing a game that involved tiny steel balls and magnets (she was still trying to understand the rules) or speaking with Lennox or Fowler at the balcony. Those mornings, Kim sat on the ratty old couch she’d dragged from one of the abandoned offices, snacked on trail mix, and watched her subjects from a distance.

Other days, the vast multi-purpose area was empty. On those days, she went to breakfast in the army dining facility. It wasn’t bad food, and the only fresh she got, since she hadn’t had time set up a ‘kitchen’ in her quarters. She didn’t know anyone in the human side well enough to seek them out to sit with. She would have to do something about that, eventually. NEST was an important part of the mecha’s world. There just wasn’t time to study it now….

Twice, on the way back from the army country, she found a small crowd in the long room that had the train tracks. That was always exciting—and a little unnerving. Jazz’s description had been way understated. They _wrestled_ in there! Some of them weighed over thirty tons, and they wrestled! Also, as she found out one evening by following the sound of cheering, they had ‘tow’ contests in their alt forms. (Ratchet, apparently, could take anyone but Bulkhead and Prime, much to Ironhide’s public chagrin). Kim always watched the matches from several feet inside the access tunnels, careful to stand firmly in the middle of the opening so she could be seen.

A few times Kim made herself settle on a low seat in the ‘bot commissary. It felt intrusive, entering that more private space, watching them select and ingest one of liquids stored in the line of tanks. She waved and smiled, but didn’t approach. Some would pause to chat, some wouldn’t.

In the afternoons, if nothing else was going on, she sat on the balcony couch to work on her fieldnotes. Usually, someone would appear and offer to answer questions or tell her stories. Slowly, she began to get to know them. It took about three days to be sure she had met all of the mecha. 

Jazz, proud connoisseur of human popular culture, asked obscure questions about musical styles and bands. Usually, Kim could not answer his questions, but he never seemed to mind. He rarely talked about Decepticons or the war, but he always knew all the gossip from the human side of the base and was happy to ‘dish.’ It was somewhat of a surprise, hearing which stories he thought were interesting enough to recount.

Drift, who was teaching some obscure martial discipline to two of the minicons, liked to talk about abstracts like aesthetics, duty, compassion, and freedom. He was pleasant, but not friendly. Kim could not imagine how the enthusiastic minicon pair got along with him. As an informant, though, Drift was great: he had a refined and thoughtful curiosity about the complexity of human social organization. Kim could tell a lot about the assumptions he made from the questions he asked.

Ironhide, it turned out, thought English maxims were inexplicable and amusing: “Make something of yourself?” Humans couldn’t make themselves _into_ anything. They just stayed in one shape. And “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?” What would humans want a bird for? And when they did want them, they were kept in cages, not hands. And _if_ a human had a bird in his or her hand, it would expel their disgusting waste _on their_ flesh, which was surely even worse than having it on one’s armor. An interview with Ironhide was always a hoot.

Once Ironhide asked her to explain “Politics makes strange bedfellows”—he knew what it meant, but could not imagine why a metaphor involving sleeping would be invoked to scorn political expediency. Kim was trying to decide how delicately to put the answer when Chromia, who was listed in the personnel folder as female—possibly because her alt form was a teal and jade-green pickup truck—glanced up from the humongous missile launcher she was cleaning and said cheerfully, “I expect it is a second metaphor—‘bedfellows’ being a euphemism for ‘rutting.’” She shrugged fluidly. “Or perhaps not. Humans seem to be very picky regarding whom they power down near.”

“No, you were…right the first time,” Kim said faintly.

Bulkhead and Strongarm would both talk about Decepticons: tactics, deployment, even the individual personalities of a few of them. They were willing to talk about Cybertron and the war, but they couldn’t seem to do it in a linear way Kim could follow. It was long ago, and a great deal of emotional baggage was attached to it.

Ratchet never appeared at the mezzanine for conversation, but texted—with no predictable pattern—commands for Kim to present herself in his repair bay. He never gave casual conversation or informal interviews, but included her with the mechanics on some presentations on Cybertronian physiology. The second time, she hurried over a little early, hoping to have a word with him before the other humans arrived.

“Uh-uh-uh!” he said as she approached. “You are early, and you do not have permission to cross the yellow line.” He was sorting through a box of oddly shaped parts, dropping them into different piles with a soft tinkle.

Kim looked at the boundary. “I was hoping we could talk for a minute.”

He sighed. “I can hear you from there.”

“Well, I’m also here as a consultant,” she said. “On human things. And integrating activities. I have some ideas about your mechanic trainee turnover problem.”

“Do tell.”

She was tempted to retreat with a defeated ‘never mind.’ Instead she forged onward. “Human bodies are on a different schedule than mechs. We need to move around more often to focus. And there are issues of waste removal. And snacks.”

He waved an impatient hand in her direction while continuing to sort with the other. “Yes, yes. I am aware of the limitations of organic life. I have no intention of inducing a bladder infection in anyone. Again. Everyone passed yesterday’s test. Breaks every two hours from now on.” Then, as a bored afterthought, “Thank you for your professional analysis.”

“Wait—it was a test?” Caught between affront and curiosity, Kim just barely stopped herself from stepping across the yellow line. “What for? To see if we follow orders.”

Ratchet put the part he was holding back in the box and turned around. “No. It was a test of your endurance. I admit, the need is less urgent in our ethnographer than in our repair staff. If I inconvenienced you to no useful purpose, I apologize.”

“I don’t understand. Why were you testing them?”

He folded his arms, considering her for a full minute as the blue sheen of his optical sensors rippled several times. “During the battle of Tiger Pax, Megatron severed seventy-nine percent of Bumblebee’s neck assembly with a durablade. In addition to the ripped cables, the lacerated hydraulics, and the ruined energon and coolant lines, his protoform was lacerated to a depth of thirty centimeters. His vocoder and main energon valve were in fragments.” He shifted and continued grimly, “As you know—or, no, I suppose you don’t—you can’t do a spot weld on protomatter. Nanoweb has to be knit back together, one micrometer at a time. It took fourteen hours of surgery just to stabilize the patient enough to _begin_ repairs. Now I realize that fourteen hours exceeds the technical specifications for the functioning of your species, but I do insist on a minimum durability of four. Do you understand?”

 _Oh, God_. Kim dropped her eyes. “Yes, Ratchet.”

“Now. I hear the trainees in the corridor. Did you have any other questions before they get here?”

“Bumblebee...” She began.

“Yes, his vocoder healed with a distortion. That’s why he doesn’t speak English. The harmonics of human voices are too complex to even approximate.”

“So protoform parts can’t be replaced?”

“They can be replaced if there are facilities to create a new one out of compatible nanoweb. And if the patient is willing to endure a highly invasive surgery and long recovery. Now. Go get settled on the observation shelf. It’s time to get started.”

That day’s lesson covered the “non-technical basics” of fuel and raw materials. Kim recorded the lecture on her phone, in addition to taking frantic fieldnotes. “Non-technical” was still bewildering. That night she dreamed she was a mech, starving and desperately trying to figure out what fluid to put in which valve.

Almost every day the lessons with the trainees continued. For the next topic Ratchet moved them down onto a work table for a tour of the infirmary itself. He showed them access paths to different levels, power supply ports, three kinds of waste disposal, a sink the right scale for a human or minicon to wash, the supply of shop towels…. 

Then Ratchet moved onto what he called basic cybertronian first aid. The content was mainly 1) stay out of Ratchet’s way and, 2) don’t touch anything that was either leaking or sparking with bare hands. That was the correct level of instruction for Kim, but she could tell two of the engineers—the ones who had advanced degrees from MIT and Cal Tech—were offended.

The lecture after that was the most frustrating yet: it covered sensory capacity. Kim couldn’t begin to figure out how mechs thought without knowing how they perceived the world, but she did not have the background to understand the technical schematics. (She spent two days on those field notes, and wound up asking Fixit stumbling questions later.) 

Ratchet started by differentiating external and introceptive sensory systems—a perspective Kim had not considered—and then listing the human senses for comparison: visual, auditory, contact, temperature, chemo-receptor, and magnetoception. “Although your magnetoception is so absurdly limited most of you haven’t noticed it exists.” 

Magnetoception was perception of electromagnetic fields. According to Ratchet, mecha perceived magnetic fields and electricity (which Ratchet said was the same thing from his perspective) with the same acuity humans perceived colors. (That was reassuring from the not-being-stepped-on standpoint)

Kim had already realized that Cybertronians also directly perceived radio waves. It was like they each had a dedicated sensory organ that was short-ranged like a wifi hub. They were almost constantly in contact with each other and the base radio networks. They were connected—all the time, everywhere—with their colleagues at NEST and the internet.

Longer range communications was accomplished through two more separate systems, only one of which involved radio. 

Visual range of Cybertronians was well into the infrared and ultraviolet. Chemical perception was acute but was not directly linked to emotional systems the way taste and smell were in humans. Touch perception varied: external armor felt very little, while some protoform extensions were as sensitive as human finger-tips.

As riveting as the presentation was, Kim barely understood the most basic parts of it. Trying to ask the engineers about it afterward actually made it worse. She spent two days fussing over her notes, downloading information about light and electromagnetics and fiberoptic cable from the internet before she gave up and decided to just start asking informants what they noticed at a given moment. 

One more topic to add to the growing list.

The fifth lesson, Ratchet opened the floor for questions. “Can mechs get sick?” Kim asked at once.

Ratchet launched into a long treatise on processor glitches, behavioral and cognitive symptoms, the limits of self-repair, and the dangers of cascade failure. When, twenty minutes later, he began to—in in sober and gruesome detail—describe different kinds of memory sector failure, Kim realized that he had interpreted her question to be about mental illness.

It rocked her a bit. She had not, until that moment, realized that mental illness was something a person who thought with integrated circuits and silicon crystals would have to worry about.

*** 

The days flowed into each other in a disorienting flow of random events. Any time, day or night, there might be activity to watch or informants to ‘hang out’ with. A lesson with Ratchet once started at 8:30 in the evening. 

On the other hand, at any time day or night, everyone who wasn’t powered down might be training with army or out on patrol. The ebb and flow of people seemed very random, but Kim knew the mecha did have cycles. At three and a half days long, they just didn’t do _Kim_ any good. The greatest consistency was Optimus in the late afternoon, meeting her on the mesa for the exchange of questions. It was the part of the day she enjoyed the most.

Field notes were a second source of order. She wrote the date at the top of a new page every morning before leaving her room in the old Cold War barracks. She noted it again when she sat down to type them up on her air-gap protected laptop. As it turned out, that wasn’t quite enough structure to keep Kim from missing that a week had passed until the morning of day nine.

She sat up, then, and looked around. She noticed, for the first time, the pile of dirty laundry, the microwave still in its box, the books she had dumped out on the floor, and three brown paper bags of garbage she didn’t even know how to dispose of.

_Well. Dang._

Kim took the morning off. She did her laundry in the NEST housing utility room. She located a dumpster.

She cleaned the bathroom she’d been using. Once she got started, her plans expanded. She scavenged empty rooms for chairs, a filing cabinet, a bookshelf, a desk. She found a Cold War era industrial vacuum cleaner—it was heavy and sounded like a jet taking off--that still had fantastic suction.

She cleared out a large empty office on the lower floor next to the balcony doors and dragged in the bottom half of a bunk bed. At the first chance to go shopping, she would get a better mattress. For now, she could haul down her stuff and unpack properly. The hardest part was the minifridge, but when she finally got it in place, the microwave fit nicely on top of it. She’d have to go upstairs to shower, but being that much closer to the field site was worth it. Boas’ biggest problem had been staying in his tent up on the hill.

It was afternoon before she was resettled. Kim heated up a can of ravioli and took her lunch out to the balcony. Ironhide and Chromia were cleaning weapons again. Bulkhead and two human soldiers were watching baseball on the large monitor beside the balcony. Fixit was half-in an access hatch he’d opened in the floor.

Twice Arcee came in, looked around, and withdrew. All her parts were combined into her multi-colored root form. Her mouth and eyes were recognizably human-ish. A sensor coil hung down her back like a short pony tail.

She looked at the mecha and they didn’t seem impossibly big. They seemed…normal. Kim chewed the delightfully warm ravioli and sighed.

The third time she came in, Arcee, paused at the railing. “Kim, where’s Bee?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him all day.”

“He’s got anthropologist duty.” The tone of complaint was unmistakable.

“He’s got what?” Kim asked.

“She’s right,” Bulkhead called, looking up from the game. “It’s posted on the duty roster.”

“So, he should be here, even if she didn’t need him.”

“Wait a minute,” Kim said. “What?” 

Stepping carefully over his baseball-watching human companions, Bulkhead joined Arcee at the balcony. She just barely came past his waist, but as always, the mecha themselves didn’t seem to notice a size difference. “You know where he must be,” Bulkhead said softly. 

“He’s supposed to be _here_.”

“He’s fine. It doesn’t hurt anything,” Bulkhead protested.

Torn between curiosity about what Bumblebee was up to and curiosity about the existence of a ‘duty roster’ and ‘anthropologist duty,’ Kim dug out her phone. No message from Bee in the four different kinds of text apps she had now. 

“We’re talking about skipping out on a duty station,” Arcee folded her arms. Even with all parts combined, she was as slender and dangerous-looking as a ballet dancer made of swords. “It’s the second time. And if Jazz notices, we’ll all be grounded for three or four _orns_!”

Interesting: Jazz (easy-going, friendly, playful Jazz?) was the disciplinarian they were worried about, not Prime?

“Slag,” Bulkhead said.

Kim experimentally flipped through the icons on her home screen. A few of them were not icons at all, but Cybertronian glyphs. She really should have paid better attention to this. And yes, there was a duty roster. And yes, _anthropologist duty_ was an actual category of assignment. Hm. It would probably be better if her contacts with informants were slightly less regimented. Should she talk to Jazz about this? Or Optimus?

Oh, god. What if it were an _onerous_ duty? “Does Bumblebee hate it that much?” Kim blurted.

Bulkhead and Arcee glanced at each other. “He’s a little shy with strangers,” Arcee ventured. Kim wasn’t sure she believed that—he was very personable.

“He likes Jasper a lot,” Bulkhead said apologetically. “He likes to cruise the strip mall.”

Arcee glanced toward the broad tunnel that led to the NEST base. “Scrap. Jazz is back.”

Kim felt a stab of panic. Both dishonesty and betrayal in the field were a disaster. She could not afford to be in a middle of a disciplinary issue. She could not afford to be standing around with Bulkhead and Arcee pretending not to look guilty. “Bulkhead?” she said frantically.

“Uh, yeah?”

“I don’t understand baseball very well. Can you explain it to me?”

“You’re asking me to explain your sport?” he said dubiously.

Kim scrambled for her notebook. “Okay, I lied. I did two years of field research in Boston. I know more about baseball than any human should. I want to see you understand it. I’m –checking translation protocols. Tell me, what’s the object of the game?”

“It won’t work,” Arcee muttered.

It didn’t work. Jazz initially sped past them, but he was back five minutes later casually asking where Bumblebee was. Kim retreated to the doorway. She needn’t have bothered. Nothing more was said aloud. The three mecha stood by the wall of the old silo in silence. Arcee shifted nervously. Bulkhead visibly wilted. 

The ball game ended and the two soldiers left with a cheerful wave, apparently oblivious to the drama. Bulkhead offered to give them a ride back to the other side. As soon as they were gone, Jazz transformed into a glittering sliver porsche and roared up the tunnel to the surface.

_Well. Scrap._

**Chapter 7**

Optimus was waiting at the edge of the plateau, looking in the direction of Jasper. Was he watching Jazz? Looking for Bumblebee?

Was Kim about to be reprimanded for not ratting out Bumblebee?

Content not to hurry things along by drawing attention to herself, Kim sat on her seat-boulder and waited in silence. It was several minutes before he turned around and nodded a greeting.

“Hi?” Kim said. “Do we need to talk?”

He frowned slightly. “We are here to talk.”

“I meant about Bumblebee.”

“Except as necessary for his duties, he has been confined to base for the next five _orns_. In addition, when he is not occupied with his work or rest, he is to make himself available to you.”

Kim grimaced. “I’m not sure making talking to me mandatory is going to improve rapport.”

“It was you his dereliction inconvenienced.”

“I didn’t actually know he was supposed to be there…and I didn’t report him missing when I found out.”

“You were not expected to.”

Kim thought about rapport. And trust. And whatever her share of responsibility for the awfulness might be. “I didn’t report him missing on purpose.” 

Optimus leaned down. The tiny lenses—each no larger than a pinky fingernail—that made up his optical arrays seemed to glow a darker blue at their centers as they changed angles to focus on her. “You are not in our chain of command. Your assignment is a bureaucratic formality to free you from federal interference. While I would expect you to report a safety or security issue, you had no reason to believe this situation offered either.”

“Oh,” Kim said, digesting that. “Did it?”

“I do not believe so. Your government does not agree.”

“Hmmm,” Kim said, absently making the non-committal interviewer noise she used when informants ran up against difficult subjects and needed a little coaxing. And then, realizing she had done it, quickly shifted directions. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“As you wish.” He dropped smoothly into a crouch, hands folded across his knees. “I have a topic that could be considered…delicate.”

“No offence from a question,” Kim said, rolling her shoulders and sitting back, trying to look receptive and confident.

“My concern is not offence. I am certain the issue is not disrespectful. Only…likely complicated in ways I cannot predict.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. So many things here were complicated in ways she could not predict. She braced herself. “I’m ready.”

“It concerns gender.” He spoke slowly. She was certain each word was very precisely selected. 

“Yeah, that has to be a lot to wrap your head around. Gender is messy even for us.” She nodded encouragingly, feeling a little more confident.

“I am not referring to human gender or biology. I was referring to your perception of ours.”

Her confidence shriveled. “Okay.” She sat back in the chair and put down her notebook, telegraphing her full attention. “What exactly is the question?”

“You have referred to Arcee, Chromia, Windblade, and Strongarm as ‘she.’ Our comrades in NEST also consistently refer to them as ‘she.’ The personnel dossiers your government has compiled on us identify—again—Arcee, Chromia, Windblade, and Strongarm as ‘female’ and the other eleven of us as ‘male.’ You have seen these, I think.”

She nodded. “I have a copy.”

“I understand that the gender-neutral pronoun ‘it’ would be insulting if applied to us, since it implies an inanimate object or non-sentient animal. Having dealt with your government’s paperwork for some four years now, I understand that it is not always possible to leave an item empty, even if none of the permitted options apply.” He glanced down at her, waited for her nod, and then looked back out over the dessert. “What I find curious is the consistency. Why are those four mecha always classified as female? What is the determining characteristic?”

Kim did not have time for crow of elation. This— _This_ \--was new and important and something she’d really wanted to bring up, but it had seemed too soon, too awkward, and even Ratchet in his biology lessons hadn’t mentioned it…and here it was being handed right to her and only nine days in! “Just to be clear,” she said cautiously, “we aren’t getting your genders right?”

A short pause. “No.”

“Is it—It’s not offensive, is it? To put you into our categories? Or misgender you?” She could imagine _that_ conversation with Bill. Or Lennox. Or Morshower. _Scrap._

“It is not offensive. I am only curious how the categories were applied. It is not height, it is not mass, it is not duty assignment. Windblade is more elaborately decorated than most of those categorized as male, but ‘she’ is not more decorated than I or Drift. I am mystified.”

“I think it might be vocal register,” Kim said. “Arcee and Chromia are narrower at the waist and shoulders and wider in the chest, which makes them look sort of female in outline. But Strongarm and Windblade aren’t. The voices, though. They all sound like women to us.”

“Interesting.”

“I think Arcee plays it up a little.”

“Yes. It amuses her.”

Kim winced inwardly. Human gender roles: amusing to aliens. She sighed.

“Thank you for your analysis.”

“So, can I ask? You, um, you don’t have genders?” Her pen was back in her hand.

“That is difficult to answer. Looking at the issue one way, you could say we have no genders. Looking at it from another, you could conclude that we have four sexes and –perhaps—two genders. None of it is usefully analogous to human sex or gender categories.”

“Is seeker a sex?” It was a term she had heard, but the only explanation she had been given was there were no seekers among the Cybertronians at NEST.

“No. Seeker is a build class.” 

Scribbling quickly, Kim wrote ‘Seeker—ethnicity? Or mechanical biology?!?’ “So, what do you have?”

“Twelve of the autobots in the community here are what you would consider both agendered and asexual. Their functions are not reproductive. An Earth analogy might be found in worker bees or ants, but those are sterile females, not truly, biologically unsexed.”

Dutifully, she wrote it down, her fingers fumbling slightly. You didn’t always understand. You took the note anyway. It was not easy to imagine, though. Bees?

She would have to sort it out later. “So…we are talking about sex as it pertains to reproduction.”

“Yes. I have noticed many humans are uncomfortable with reproduction—often to such an extent that some attempt to conceal biological facts from children and young adults. It is an even more delicate topic then gender roles. Are you able to continue?”

Kim gulped. “Me? I’m fine. And very curious. But I have no desire to pry into…private matters.” Windblade had warned her specifically, in fact.

“It is not a transgression to discuss this topic.”

“Okay, so the first sex is not involved in reproduction.” 

“The next....I am not sure can identified as a category. There is only one example. He is eternal and sentient, but set apart from society. He is deep within cybertron. Vector Sigma.” He projected two glyphs in the air, one like an elaborately curled V, the other like a pointed E. Kim copied them obediently. “Vector Sigma is a source of life. Vector Sigma is our…’Well of Souls.’ From Vector Sigma comes sparks that quicken a created but unliving protoform. It is the spark that turns an object into a sparkling…” Optimus trailed off, his frame shifting slightly. Again, Kim thought of Windblade’s warning about not discussing sparklings casually.

Kim waited.

“It is _said_ that from Vector Sigma came the Allspark and the Creation Matrix, but I have seen no original documentation of this. It is also said they are direct gifts of Primus. No, they do not have sexes. Neither, strictly speaking, is sentient. They are able to generate life, among other gifts. They are holy relics. That concept translates very well. The Allspark, before it was destroyed, was kept in a shrine.”

He paused again. Kim wrote as quickly as she could, the pen slippery with sweat. She wanted to know how the Allspark had been destroyed, but she wasn’t going to interrupt to ask. This talk—explaining holy relics to an ignorant alien, discussing their destruction—was probably awful enough without it being drawn out by even more questions.

“So that they would not stagnate, so that they would not grow apart, so that information and code could be carried between the Allspark or the Great Matrix, occasionally Vector Sigma would bring forth a spark specially designed to be a courier. We called them First of Line. That is the third sex and the first that could be called perhaps –in human terms—a gender. The first of line were rare—the most ever to exist was six hundred and five—and set somewhat apart. They were innovators. They were teachers. To create a new First of Line, an existing First of Line must exchange data with the Allspark or Great Matrix and then present himself to Vector Sigma and request a new First of Line spark be generated. It was an arduous process, and often the request was rejected.”

Kim’s stomach clenched. It was too awful. These refugee people had lost their world, one of their life creating sources was out of reach on Cybertron—assuming it still existed—and another, the Allspark had been destroyed. Kim rubbed her palms on her shorts. It was a terrible thing to hear, to take notes on. To write down. “Are there any First of Line still alive?” she asked quietly.

“To my certain knowledge, there are two. They are here on Earth. As far as I know, they are the last of their kind.” His head swiveled down, glittering eyes coming to focus on her face. “I am curious. Is their difference observable to humans? Whom would you guess, Kim?”

For a moment she tried to think, weighing Ratchet’s moods and respected status against Jazz’s willingness to explore new ideas—but surely personality alone was not the issue. “Chromia,” she hazarded. “And you.”

His lens arrays flipped to wider focus and then back. “Chromia, yes,” he said. “But Windblade rather than me.”

“Windblade?” she repeated. Windblade and Chromia did not seem much alike.

“Windblade is much younger. She was sparked in the early days of the war, and soon afterward Vector Sigma turned from us. Her training as a courier was never completed. They are, analogously, sisters. They were both brought forth from Vector Sigma by the First of Line Alpha Trion.”

Kim wrote it all down, grateful that her notes saved her from having to think of something to say in the face of something so sad. Finally, she looked up. “She won’t be offended, will she? That I couldn’t tell?”

“No. But In any case, the test might not have been fair. The sample was confounded by an additional gender category. I am undecided if the category sex applies. Perhaps you can help sort out the terminology.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The last category is composed of the guardians of the relics.”

“The Allspark and the Great Matrix,” Kim clarified, frantically writing again. She could not keep up.

“The Allspark was housed and attended in a shrine. The Matrix is housed within the body of its guardian. To carry the Matrix is a great honor and a position of the highest trust and responsibility. In addition to its reproductive capacity, the Matrix is a vessel that contains profound wisdom. To serve the Matrix is to share that wisdom in the service of others.”

He waited, watching patiently, while she finished writing. At last, Kim looked up. “Do you understand?” he asked.

“Twelve ungendered, two First of Lines…and you,” Kim answered. “Is that what ‘Prime’ means? You have the Matrix in you?” He had said, that first day after the job interview, that his title was hard to translate.

“The title Prime was also applied to the guardian of either relic. Once, there were two of us. I am the last.”

She could not say _nothing_ , and she could not say enough. What words are there for a tragedy this enormous? “I’m…so sorry for your loss.” It came out a whisper.

“I, as well.”

Kim stood up, tossing the notebook onto the rock behind her and taking a step closer to the huge face that was still leaning close above her. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I am not sure how to explain it to the leaders of your military. Or if I should even try. If they knew I carried within me the capacity for generating life…they may find the prospect of a new cohort of Autobots alarming, even though it is clear that we do not have the resources to raise them.”

Kim snorted. “If they find out you have the capacity for generating life, they’ll think you’re a girl.”

“You believe it would diminish me in their opinion?”

“Some of them. Yeah.”

“That is illogical to the point of incoherence…but it had occurred to me as well. I had hoped you would dismiss the possibility.”

She took a deep breath, thinking about it. “Okay. None of this needs to go in a report right now. You don’t mind being called he. Cromia doesn’t mind being called she. Gender is irrelevant practically speaking. The obscure and convoluted sex details—which I can’t be sure I understand—are not a priority.”

“I appreciate this consideration.”

“You’re welcome.” And then, because it was better not to leave things unsaid, “I appreciate your telling me.”

**Chapter 8**

When Kim came to the balcony the next morning, Cliffjumper and Ironhide were at the work area examining satellite data on the screen, Jazz’s alt form was parked in the corner, and Bumblebee waited below the railing.

As Kim reached the edge, he looked up at her and gave a small wave. A shoulder-mounted speaker played a clip of an excessively happy morning song that Kim didn’t recognize. “Likewise,” Kim answered. But she was worried. The song was so over the top it might have been meant as irony. _Hello, good morning, happy day?_ Seriously? On the other hand, most morning songs were absurdly chipper.

Kim sat down on the edge with her legs over the side and her arms resting on the bottom railing. He was holding still, and she could get a good look. After spending so much time with the really big mechs, he seemed—at just over twelve feet tall—almost out of scale. His face plating was more tightly set (and so less mobile) than most of the others, which made him harder to read. Kim called up the duty roster on her phone. Yep. All the slots marked ANTHROPOLOGIST now had his name. Scrap. This was so not how she wanted to get informants.

“I’m sorry you got caught,” she offered.

The speaker sprang to life with “ _Ooops, I did it again_!”

Kim smothered a laugh but, encouraged, pushed forward: “So were you avoiding me? Have I done something to offend you?”

She had not realized that his optical units were overlapping spirals of lenses until they irised down to the size of nickels. His speaker sprang to life with Urkle wailing, “Did I do that?” At the same time, her phone signaled a text: “I WAS NOT AVOIDING YOU. THERE WAS AN. EVENT IN TOWN.”

“Oh,” Kim said. “That’s different.”

Another text: “I DID NOT THINK YOU WOULD NOTICE. YOU DISLIKE DIGITAL COMMUNICATION. YOU NEVER CHECK THE DUTY ROSTER OR RESPOND TO GLYPHS.”

Kim felt herself flushing with embarrassment. “Oh. Yeah. I didn’t know the duty roster existed. I can’t use half the stuff Ratchet did to my phone.” She froze, feeling slightly sick. “All those glyphs—those were messages _to me_? I thought it was code or a security app or something!”

Bumblebee gave a slight shrug: “NOT MESSAGES TO YOU, PROBABLY. NOBODY SENDS GLYPHS TO HUMANS. BUT PRIME ORDERED YOUR PHONE TO BE SET TO RECEIVE ALL OPEN CHANNELS AND ANYONE CAN JUMP INTO AN OPEN DISCUSSION. AND YOU NEVER DID. AND YOU DON’T LAUGH AT THE JOKES.”

Kim kept her eyes down, reading and re-reading that.

She had thought she had been doing so well.

 _Oh, god_. She had missed so much.

_Scrap._

_Ratchet, you son of a bitch!_ “He didn’t give me a translation program!”

Bumblebee reached up, his hand—three times the size of Kim’s own—open. “ _Allow me, Madam_ ,” said his speaker in a stuffy British accent.

Concealing her reluctance, Kim passed her phone down. Bumblebee extruded a chord from his wrist and connected to the phone. With his other hand he lifted a single finger: wait.

Kim, scowling, rested her chin on the bottom rail.

From a TV advertisement a booming voice with an artificial echo: “ _FOUR-ooooH-FOUR! FILE NOT-not-NOT FOUND-D_.”

He disconnected and handed the phone back. A text said: “THE APPLICATION FOR INTERFACING WITH BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DISCUSSIONS IS ROBUST. NO TRANSLATION MATRIX IS ATTATCHED.” Then, a moment later. “NO HIGH CYBERTRONIAN—TO—ENGLISH DICTIONARY HAS BEEN CREATED.”

“Oh,” Kim said. She was a bit abashed about blaming Ratchet, but that feeling was quickly smothered by growing horror: she was going to have to learn a field language—from scratch, with no dictionary, for a language that was visual. “I don’t suppose one could be created?”

He answered: “JAZZ AND I COULD PROBABLY DO IT. WE HAVE THE BEST COMMAND OF ENGLISH IDIOM. CONVERSATIONAL GLYPHS ARE VERY CONTEXT-DEPENDENT. AND THEY TEND TO BE MULTIVARIATE.” From Bumblebee’s speaker, Scott Bakula’s voice said, “ _Oh, boy._ ”

Kim switched to the app that was full of glyphs. She touched the most recent (oh—hey, they were-time stamped) and a tiny label below it identified it as being from Jazz. She turned the phone and showed Bumblebee. “What does this one mean?”

A text arrived. Kim tabbed over. It was a GIF of Homer Simpson confronted with a box of donuts and drooling as he reached for one.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a direct translation,” Kim said. There was no real equivalence in transformer experience to how humans felt about food.

There was a short pause, then:“EAGERNESS; ANTICIPATION; ENTHUSIASM, ESP. FOR A PROJECT WHICH WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY END IN FAILURE OR HUMILIATION.”

“Oh,” Kim said. “That’s a really good word. English doesn’t have that word. I feel really cheated.”

It was the work of a few minutes for Bumblebee and Jazz to compile a list of the sixty most commonly used glyphs (social statistics so much easier with crystal memory and integrated circuits rather than neurons) and throw together a basic glossary.

Figuring out what to do with the list was another matter. Her phone faithfully translated the ideograms Jazz and Bumblebee sent, but she still couldn’t decipher what the message _meant_.

“’Generalized query’?” she asked helplessly. “About what?”

Jazz looked at her quizzically. “About anything. It’s a _generalized_ query. Hmmm. ‘How’s it hummin’?’ Like that.”

“Okay. Got it. So…how would I answer that?”

They looked at each other for a long moment, possibly consulting on a private channel. At last Jazz turned back. “We’re not sure what it would make sense for a human to say.”

Bumblebee played a few bars of “Complicated.”

Kim sighed, thought for a moment, and then sent _Generalized query_ back. Maybe seeing how Jazz and Bumblebee answered would give her an idea. The response was immediate—from Ironhide, Chromia, Windblade, Ratchet, Fixit, and Bulkhead. “Well,” Jazz said. “That was a good start. But you sent it to everybody in radio range.”

“Scrap,” Kim muttered, fumbling through the brief messages. Each glyph was displayed with the translation along with the name of the sender. Ratchet had responded with :: _Busy._ Ironhide and Chromia had both responded with :: _Contented._ Windblade had responded with :: _As expected_. Fixit had responded with :: _Surprise, Passage of time, Planetary conditions_. This was not much weirder than some of the audible conversations she’d had with him. But—ugh--Bulkhead responded with something that wasn’t on the list, but Jazz sent over a translation :: _Loud noise that causes sensor feedback_. “Is Bulkhead mad at me?”

Bumblebee shook his head vehemently. Kim pointed at the screen. “This doesn’t mean I talk too much?” He played the sound of a crowd roaring while an announcer yelled ‘touchdown.’

Oh. Well. That was better.

***

The next three (or possibly four) days were lost in a haze of learning glyphs. There were intermittent lectures from Ratchet (the function of energon, the mechanics of the T-cog), dinner-time meetings with Optimus (she brought food every time now, since there really wasn’t time to eat before or after), hours spent writing up and tagging field notes, and a heart-stopping ‘tow’ contest between Drift and Chromia (Chromia won, Drift was much more gracious about it than Ironhide ever was about losing to Bulkhead or Ratchet).

But through all of that, in every spare moment, there were glyphs. 

Jazz and Bumblebee added to the file of translations every day, and the labels attached to the shapes seemed fairly straightforward. In use, though, glyphs hardly ever seemed to make sense. They got all bogged down in context and implication.

It also didn’t help that the average glyph message was only three characters long, used no articles or prepositions, and usually had no verbs. What was the proper response to:: _Curiosity; Sensation of great speed_? Was it a question? A comparison? Why, after a brief visit by National Security Director Mearing, did four different ‘Bots send:: _Emphasis; overlapping_? Why was a particularly bad joke by Bulkhead derided as : _:Undercharged_ when there were actual glyphs for _Not funny_ and _Humor fail?_ How did any of that work?

The flood of bewildering icons was sped along by a sudden increase in help. Apparently, the idea of a human attempting to learn glyphs was a curiosity, the most interesting distraction to happen in weeks. Every time Kim entered a room someone glyphed her a greeting or a general query. Those were easy to answer—or so she thought until Cliffjumper pointed out that she was using the answers appropriate for on-duty military personnel. He and Bumblebee then got into a disagreement over whether it was more appropriate to use the forms for comrade-off-duty (because she lived in the base) or casual-acquaintance (since she was outside their chain of command).

Harder, was when they tried to tell her jokes. She considered—after the sixth time she didn’t get the punchline—pretending to think anything was funny. But no. If they ever saw through that deception they would surely send nonsense messages to see if she would make a fool of herself faking it.

Even Windblade, a comparatively new arrival on Earth who had little interest in the native life, got into the game. If she passed through a room where Kim happened to be she would fire off a simple, one-symbol message. If Kim answered coherently, she sent :: _Approval_ back. 

Ratchet called her aside—alone, without the engineers—and gave a very thorough lesson on glyphs for asking for different kinds of help, expressing distress, or requesting information. It was as relentlessly detailed as any of his other lessons. 

Jetstorm and Slipstream sat beside her on the balcony couch and earnestly explained the proper interpretation and use of profanities. Yes, there were glyphs for _Scrap_ , _Slag_ , _Pit_ , _No traction,_ and _Structurally unsound_. In addition, there were _Manufacturing reject, Glitch_ and _Glitched,_ but these were kind of strong for a human to use. And if she did use them, she must never, ever do it in front of the Prime. _Manufacturing reject_ and _Glitch_ implied a being so poorly made a person had no right to exist. _Glitched_ was a stigmatizing term for processor malfunction (mental illness).

She did not use cuss glyphs herself, but it was easy enough follow when others did. Not so easy were modifier glyphs. Adding _Emphasis_ , _Surprise_ , _Self_ , or _Sympathy_ at the beginning of a message was like having an exclamation point. How _Self_ affected the meaning was a mystery and _Surprise_ turned up frequently in discussions that were not surprising. Sarcasm? Humor?

Glyphs also sometimes contained terms of personal address. Not usually, she was told, in public commentary. But private messages might be headed with a statement of personal relationship. At different times Jazz, Windblade, and Bulkhead tried to explain. A great deal was lost in translation. The Y-spiral glyph was labeled _brother or sister_ although everyone confirmed there was no equivalent relationship by birth or household composition. When off-duty and speaking privately, Ironhide and Bulkhead claimed to address everyone as _Beloved friend_. Ratchet saved _Beloved friend_ for Ironhide and Optimus (a scandalous familiarity, according to Windblade—the Prime should always be _Prime_ , _Your grace_ , _Beloved teacher_ , or _My commander_ depending on the context) and when he bothered to attach a relational tag called everyone else _Hey you_ or _Coworker._

As for private messages sent to Kim herself, relationship signs were rare. Those she worked with most frequently might greet her as _Cohabitant_ or _Coworker_. Drift, Windblade, and Cliffjumper called her _Guest._

Watching the glyph screen while listening to other conversations revealed that glyphs frequently peppered verbal conversations. The images usually expanded on a detail or added an emotional response. Before long, Kim was dreaming about glyphs. It would not have been so bad if she had been dreaming about using them correctly. But no. Dream messages were just as random and incomprehensible as the real ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reproduction in the G1 cartoon was simply mystifying. Vector Sigma, the huge sphere deep in the planet, accessed with a 'key;' and hovering over what looks like a hole in the floor (Omphalos much?) making baby (well, inexperienced adult) souls to pop into pre-made bodies? Well...okay. But in why that case, what were the fem bots for?  
>   
> No. Really. What were they for?  
>   
> And then the comic book presented the Creation Matrix (Leadership Matrix was surely a change made for the movie to remove all the awkward questions around Optimus being not only fertile, but structurally female). And that made a bit more sense, somehow.  
>   
> Unsurprisingly, G1 ignored the implications of Primes getting a different afterlife than everyone else (where does everyone else go, and how do their sparks get there?) And yeah, wow, that still seems weird.  
>   
> And then Bey came along and pissed pointless stupidity all over the marvelous chaos.  
> *  
> Oh, and "Colorless green ideas" is a linguistics thing.


	4. Part 4: Thomas Theorem

Thomas Theorem: What is believed to be real is real in its consequences.

**Chapter 9**

Somewhere around the end of her second week in the field, a schedule change while Kim was eating lunch in the NEST cafeteria announced an appointment for “patrol” at 2:00 in the assembly area. It was followed a few minutes later by a message from Optimus pushing up the appointment to 1:30 and instructing jeans, closed toed shoes, and a liter of water.

When she came down the steps from the mezzanine at 1:28 Optimus was at the bottom in his alt-form. She didn’t spend a lot of time talking to alt-forms, and as usual she felt a bit awkward as she came around to the front and waved in greeting. “How long is the patrol? Am I actually going?” Some patrols lasted fifty hours or more, and a liter of water wasn’t enough.

“It’s not a proper patrol. We are rechecking a site identified by Arcee and Cliffjumper last week. We estimate it will take less than three hours.” The passenger side door—the one closest to Kim—popped open. “Come in. There is some technical context we should discuss before leaving.”

The daunting prospect of figuring out how to climb into a semi cab distracted her for a moment from the reality of climbing up another person’s body and entering it. She had been lifted by Autobots before—mainly Ratchet, who got impatient with how slowly humans moved—but she had not yet ridden in one. NEST soldiers did, she knew. But now, confronted with Optimus Prime’s actual seats, she couldn’t imagine how they could. Was she supposed to sit on him? And her feet, standing on pristine carpet that was definitely alive and might be touch-sensitive! In the field in Boston she wouldn’t even have put her shoes on an informant’s coffee table.

If she took her shoes off, that would solve the disrespect issue…but it would raise questions of personal intimacy that didn’t bear thinking about. Inappropriate was too weak a word.

The door shut behind her and Kim realized she had been holding her breath. She could not stand up straight. She was gripping the dashboard for balance.

“Kim? Is anything wrong?”

“No,” she squeaked. “Why?”

“Your heart rate has increased, and you are emitting stress pheromones.”

“Yeah. I probably am. Just—give me a moment?”

“Are you afraid?” he asked. And then: “Are you afraid of me?”

“No!” She sat down hard, ruthlessly ignoring her confusion and embarrassment.

“You are distressed.” It was not a question.

“I’m—it’s social. I think. I don’t have--” But how could she even explain this. “I don’t have protocols for being inside friends. Or coworkers. Or informants. Or pretty much anybody.”

“My current alt-form is a Freightliner Cascade. The crew cabin is designed for the transportation of humans in comfort and safety.”

“It’s very nice,” she gulped. “I see you even have a little pine tree.” A finger reached out.

“That is a sensor nodule.”

Kim’s fingers snapped into a guilty fist. Of course, it was. “I just—don’t have any rules for how to behave here.”

“You behave as you would in any truck cab.”

“But you’re not! You’re a person. I’m inside a person! The only time a human is inside another person is before they’re born. Or for sex, and that’s worse!”

“Hm.” There was a long pause. “The NEST Unit have not mentioned this issue. They found our alienness disconcerting at first. But not our alt-modes.”

“Well. They spend most of their time thinking about how to fight Decepticons. And they have known you longer. And they couldn’t admit it anyway, could they? If they did get freaked out. That whole military thing. No weakness.”

The door swung open again. “Step out, please.”

Her legs were unsteady as she landed on the concrete floor. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to offend you. I’m really afraid I’m going to.”

“Step back.”

Wincing inwardly, she did. The Autobot leader unfolded like bud opening and reshaped himself, kneeling. His frame angled down. She was only three or four feet from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Stop apologizing.”

Kim nodded and wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans. “Was this a test?”

“I’m beginning to think so,” he answered. “But for me rather than for you.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said quickly. “It’s my problem.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the soft whir of Optimus’ vents. Every single one of the tiny lenses that made up his eyes rippled in concentration and then refocused on her. “Hm,” he said. “Can you explain the problem?”p’[-

She wasn’t at all sure she could. “Being inside another person....”

“Are you worried you will come to harm?”

“No.” She wasn’t. Mech sensors were very precise, and tracked her more ways than Kim could even perceive. They wouldn’t make a dangerous mistake. She hadn’t worried about it even before Ironhide had explained. “Really, no.” She had to crane her neck, looking up into the face that was nearly as tall as her whole body. He was alien and powerful and so, so different. But he was not a danger.

“Is the similarity to gestation disconcerting?”

“No. It’s not similar at all.” _Ew_. “But don’t bring that up again.”

“It’s not…I am not sure how to broach this delicately. The context, it isn’t reminiscent of being…eaten?”

Kim goggled. “No!”

“Are you certain? Human culture contains many metaphors to ingestion. And your mass media seems to have being consumed by a giant monster as a theme.”

“No. _Really_ no. I’ve seen what you eat. It’s not anything like me. And—hey. You’re not a monster.”

He shifted slightly upwards and sighed. “I admit to being baffled,” he said.

“You don’t have nearly as many complicated rules as we do about personal space. Or touching.”

“Physical contact is a mammalian characteristic,” he offered tentatively. He was neither protesting nor agreeing.

“Yes, but we don’t just touch each other. It’s all wrapped up in layers of complicated rules. It feels like I’d be sitting in your lap. Um, Edward Hall? Right? Touch means something. Who and where and how. It communicates….” She trailed off, running her hands through her hair. _Scrap._ “Even personal space. There are…rules.”

“How do those rules apply here?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the problem.”

“But those rules do not apply to objects. My cab is a perfect replica of a Freightliner Cascade. Could you think of me in alt as--”

“Treat you as an object? Oh, no. No. That’s one test I’m not failing.”

“Ah. An important point.”

“Anyway…I wouldn’t know what I’m sitting on. Or near. I mean, if I touched something, or accidently kicked something….”

“You are concerned you might hurt me.”

“Yes, carried around inside you.”

“No fragile or sensitive components are accessible to the cab in my alt form. Even if you wished to harm me, the weapon you carry could not puncture the surface.”

“Weapon?”

His optical sensors shifted to her bag; the multi-tool? What sensor detected that? Anyway, it scarcely counted as a weapon.

“Humans touch one another with hands,” he continued thoughtfully. “For many reasons. Even strangers or some kinds of opponents. Your norms apply to hands differently. It is part of their function.”

She nodded.

“Frame my cab the same way. Its purpose is contact with humans.”

Kim took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. She thought of the times she had sat in Ratchet’s hand. Hands weren’t private. She’d shaken hands with lots of people. She’d shaken hands with the department chair when she graduated, and she loathed him. “Okay.”

“Have we negotiated a satisfactory interface protocol?”

The alienness of that rocked her anew. Optimus didn’t say negotiated ‘norms.’ He said ‘protocols.’ Speaking English and liking oldies didn’t change the fact that he _thought_ in Core Unicode and glyphs and his behavior patterns were subroutines. While norms could be met with ambivalence or contested or interpreted on the fly, she was learning that mech protocols were much more solid. If cab space was designated as human transport, then that is what it _was_. It was that simple for him. She would have to make it that simple, too. “Yes. I’m sorry I made this complicated.”

“No apology is needed. This was very educational. It is why a civilian anthropologist was sought.” He stepped back and snapped into the whirl of movement that would –somehow—end in a big rig. “We do not have more time to discuss this now. I had hoped to explain the particulars of the upcoming mission.” He rocked on his tires as the last component slid into place and opened his door again. “Get in.” 

Scrambling up was easier the second time. She sat firmly on the bench before she could think about it. _This is a human interface area. I accept his reality._ “Is this directed inside the cab or outside?” she asked, pointing at the flat little Christmas tree dangling from the rearview mirror.

“The sensor array is directed toward the inside of the cab. It is an infrared receptor for monitoring passengers. The audio pick-up is in the dome light.”

“Is that where I look when I talk to you?”

There was a short silence. “Why is that important?”

“Well, there is nothing to make eye contact with.”

“Edward Hall again?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Nonverbal communication had been a long time ago.

A sigh—she still wasn’t sure if it was spontaneous emotional expression or a sound he was using like a word?—resonated around her. “This is beginning to explain a great many odd interactions with our NEST partners. Can a focus point be arbitrarily designated, or will it be necessary to extrude a camera in the passenger cabin?”

“If you can’t see me, it probably doesn’t matter.”

“My readings on your body temperature are very precise, but I cannot make out facial expressions. Hm. This may be a significant oversight. However. If we are settled for now,” he paused, but Kim had nothing to add, “we can return to the matter later. At length. Just now, we need to discuss today’s mission.”

“I’m listening.”

“We are rechecking a probable energon deposit in Northern Canada. We will be accompanied by Ironhide and Captain Lennox.”

“Do you teleport?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, we can’t drive to Canada in six hours. And Jazz said he was in Mongolia last week.”

“The specific technology used is called a ‘ground bridge.’ It is not what is generally meant by ‘teleporting.’ A ground bridge is a subspace portal.”

“Is it related to your subspace pockets?” Not that that analogy would help—Kim had no idea how those worked either. Ratchet hadn’t even tried to explain it to his engineer trainees.

“Only remotely. It is the travel protocols we must discuss, not the technical details.” 

“Yes, okay. I’m listening.” Firmly she sat back in the seat.

“Humans should only transit a ground bridge while inside a mech passenger cab. Because the subspace tunneling disrupts balance, it is also best if mechs transit while in alt form. This is very important. Humans cannot perceive EM fields clearly enough to navigate the bridge.”

“Okay, right. Stay inside the cab.”

“Radiation exposure while in the portal is negligible. To be safe, Ratchet suggests a lifetime limit for humans of six hundred transits.” He paused. “Reaching this limit is unlikely. The energy expenditure for the ground bridge is prohibitively high, even with the dedicated generator.”

“Why do you need to travel in person? I thought there were satellite searches?”

“We have been plagued with false positives for both Deception activity and energon deposits.”

“Ratchet mentioned the energon situation is pretty urgent.” Not a question, just a suggestion of topic.

“Seat belt, please. Captain Lennox and Ironhide are waiting at the ground bridge.” He waited for Kim to belt in and then began to roll smoothly forward. The sound of the engine was no louder than the cab’s air vents and there was no real sense of vibration. It was impossible to forget he wasn’t earth technology. “Our current energon situation is...adequate if we use the supplies carefully. If the mech population grows or if there are a large number of serious injuries…Ratchet is worried.”

 _So are you_ , Kim thought. But they had passed the infirmary and entered the broad tunnel that led to NEST Command. It wasn’t a route Kim took to the other base—the smaller, human sized tunnel was much shorter and convenient for the Minicons who usually accompanied her. A quarter mile or so down the cavernous tunnel was an alcove with a glittering arch at the rear near the wall. The array of equipment and humans was bewildering, but Kim recognized Fixit and someone she’d had breakfast with once or twice in the NEST cafeteria—Maggie something. Ironhide was there as well, and she could make out Lennox inside, waving jauntily. Kim waved back.

“What will it be like?” Kim asked abruptly.

“If you close your eyes it will seem no different than driving across an intersection.”

“Should I?”

The arc lit up, flaring bright red before becoming a vertical pool of rippling pink light. Kim swallowed and wiped her sweaty hands on her arms. “I see why I got all those science fiction questions in the interview,” she muttered.

“This is much less dramatic than a space ship. The connection has been confirmed. Ironhide will transit first.”

Unwilling to clutch at the armrests or handles, Kim gripped the seat belt and forced herself to keep breathing slowly as they rolled forward into the pink shimmer.

Utter blackness closed in. Kim had time to gasp, to wonder if, in fact, she had closed her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she leaned close to the passenger window, trying to see if there was anything in the darkness outside the cab.

Just suddenly the blackness was gone and Kim was blinking in sunlight.

A forest, with thin pine trees in all directions except the gravel road under Ironhide up ahead. Kim exhaled. Canada. _Damn._

Automatically, she tried to think of an equivalent glyph profanity. That wasn’t a good priority, though, so she gave up. “What now?”

Ironhide first, they proceeded along the rough little road—not particularly smoothly, but as casually as if they had been driving on it all day. She had been in Nevada only a couple of weeks, but already Kim had gotten used to looking out and seeing no trees. Everything seemed so green and wet. Canada. “The survey site is near an inhabited area. We will have to blend in.”

“Right. Okay,” Kim muttered. “Think like a Canadian. It helps that you’re already polite.”

“ _I_ will not be interacting with the locals,” Optimus said after a moment.

Kim laughed nervously. “Right. That was a joke.”

“Ah.”

The gravel road was cut from the side of a hill. Or, possibly, a mountain. On the left was a drop. A definite drop. On the right was sliced earth and rock. The road wasn’t very wide. And there was no guard rail—not that one of those would stop a semi. Or even a big-cabbed pick-up truck like Ironhide. The trees, too, did not look sturdy enough to act as much of a barrier. Kim cleared her throat and gripped the seatbelt again. It was hard to pull her eyes away from that drop.

Kim cleared her throat and glanced at the dome light. “So. Is driving pretty much the same, one planet to another?”

“Not at all. Cybertron was a built environment, not a natural one. Earth generally—and this path in particular—is much more challenging. Even the advanced stunt courses were not so precariously surfaced.”

Oh. That was…disappointing to hear. Kim fingered her seatbelt. “Do a lot of stunt driving back home?”

He chuckled. “Not as much as I’ve done here. I’ve had to reformat my tires six times, trying to yield satisfactory traction.”

Through a gap in the trees she could see a highway cutting through a pass on a hill opposite. It was kind of picturesque. “Oh. So. How’s traction now?”

“I am very pleased with the latest iteration.”

“Oh. Good.” The gravel road merged with a paved road that was no wider and much steeper. _Well_ , Kim thought, _if we go off the road, I’ll get out and he’ll transform and climb back onto the road_ …. _But, hey, the traction is good. We’ll be fine._

Driving had not been like this in Massachusetts.

“As I understand it,” Optimus said, apparently indifferent to the inadequacy of the road, “the birds in the trees here are not the sort humans keep for pets.” 

“Oh. Uh. That sounds right. Finches maybe. But most pets are tropical birds.”

“Why?”

“I….really don’t know.”

“You have never kept a bird?”

“No. Well, I tried to rescue a baby bird that fell out of the nest once. But it was wild.” Were birds domesticated? “Anyway, I failed. It died.” They were almost down the mountain now. The trees were thinning, and she could see small houses perched above steep driveways. There were cars, too, here and there. Parked. Driving on the streets below. And, _oh_ , how strange was it that none of them were the alt modes of people? They were all just cars.

Cars, and more houses. A small lake (large pond?) and an old-fashioned steel bridge spanning the creek that fed it. They were at the outskirts of a real town now. “Do you like this part of earth?” Kim asked.

“Liking,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Liking is an important categorization for humans.”

“Oh,” Kim said. “You don’t like it, but that’s not important.”

“On the contrary. I like it very much. In all directions is such vast tonnage of life that I feel both dwarfed and awed. But my liking is—yes—not a priority.”

“Why doesn’t it matter what you like?”

She had to wait a long time for an answer. “My response to a phenomenon is only a negligible feature in the scope of its total existence.” 

Kim was not sure she could take notes while in motion, but _oh_ , this was data. “This attitude isn’t a mech thing or an Autobot thing,” she said. Bumblebee was very clear about what he liked. And Windblade. “Is it a Prime thing? Or maybe a… war thing?”

They were on a proper two-lane road now. Here in the valley the road was flat. Optimus paused for a stop sign, then said, “A war thing. Evaluating and prioritizing based on intangible qualities used to be one of my core responsibilities. Now it is a costly indulgence. The war has changed all of us. For example, since our transit twenty-seven minutes ago, Ironhide has been transmitting an ongoing tactical assessment of the valley. Before his retrofit as a war frame, he was a structural engineer. A bridge builder.” 

_Oh_. Kim took a deep breath. “Is it okay that I ask these questions?”

“It is your purpose. It is why a civilian ethnographer was sought.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s my purpose to ask. You aren’t obligated to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

“This is a research ethics conversation.” Kim thought he showed considerable restraint omitting the word “another” and an accompanying sigh.

“Yes.”

“I have given informed consent.”

“Yeah. You can change your mind any time.”

“Have any of the others refused particular questions?”

“It would be a breach of confidentiality to tell you if they had. But, no, I don’t ask them serious personal questions yet. If you don’t understand your rights as a research subject, they sure as hell don’t. Well. Maybe Jazz.” The valley was narrow, and they were already almost in the shadow of the other side.

“I appreciate your commitment to your profession’s moral standards. And your desire to protect us is commendable. However, has it occurred to you that you cannot possibly be a threat to me?”

Kim laughed. “If you actually mean that, you really have not thought this out.” 

“It was worth a try.”

They turned onto a wide side-road fronting several modern-looking public buildings that sat at the foot of a tree-covered mountain: a high school, a library, a post office. They parked at the library—or, rather, Ironhide did. Optimus pulled onto a paved empty lot next door. “You don’t exactly blend in,” Kim said.

“Rural areas have diverse transportation. And this operation will not take long.” Kim’s seatbelt released, and the door opened. Captain Lennox—dressed in jeans and a leather jacket—was motioning for her to join him. Kim grabbed her purse and jumped out.

Even late in the afternoon, Nevada had been hot. The air here was cool, almost chilly. It was also somehow softer and humid. And the scents—decay and pine trees and flowers—were nearly overpowering. “So…what exactly are we doing?” Kim asked, as she jogged across the parking lot.

“We think it’s an energon deposit on that hill,” he pointed behind the high school. “We walk up, set the scan, record the data, and go home. That’s it.”

“Is there a catch?”

“Only that there probably isn’t enough energon there to make it worth the risk of collecting it.”

“Oh. Should I apologize for you being dragged out here to –I assume we’re training me?”

He shrugged. “I’ll bring back some pine cones for my kids and call it a win.” He handed Kim a very gagetty-headset and showed her how to turn it on and off and switch channels. “Might as well get to it.”

There was a trail behind the high school. Of course, there was. It was littered with cigarette butts and the occasional faded beer can. The mountainside was steep, but the ground was much softer than the stone, metal grating, and cement that floored the base. The pine needles smelled sweet.

Over the headset, Kim could hear Optimus and Ironhide discussing the alt-mode merits of passing cars. 

The path ended in an old cemetery. Evidence said it saw a lot of use by high school students, too. The trees were thinner here. Lennox studied the sky for a moment, then fiddled with his headset. “Graham, Can I have a weather update?” he asked. Whatever answer he got didn’t seem to satisfy him. Frowning, he checked the GPS, then walked quickly past the worn and leaning headstones and out the other side. 

There wasn’t much underbrush, but the trees were set closely. Picking his way between the trees, Lennox kept glancing between the GPS and another boxy device. At a spot in the woods that looked like all the other spots in the woods, he called a halt. “Getting any equipment in or out with these trees is going to be a hassle, guys.” His voice was both ten feet away and directly in Kim’s ear. “And if we take any of them down, somebody will notice.”

“ _Continue the examination anyway, Captain_ ,” Optimus instructed.

Lennox kicked aside some leaves with his foot, produced what might pass for a tent stake from a pocket, and pushed it into the dirt. He held out two more and handed them to Kim. “There, and there,” he said, pointing. Kim took them. They felt warm and smooth.

“Here?” The probes sank easily into the soft ground.

Lennox paced walked a short circuit of the area, studying the boxy device. He tossed a camera to Kim. “Get some pictures,” he said.

“Of what? It’s just trees.”

“Yeah. Them.” He sighed. “I suppose we could buy up a couple of acres, say we were trying to build a house. Energon extraction is a pretty tidy operation. Not this tidy though.” He motioned Kim to get clear of the area bounded by the stakes. “All right, Ironhide. Trigger the sensors.”

“ _Data capture complete_ ,” Ironhide said.

“And we’re done!” He motioned in the direction of the furthest stake. “Help me gather up the equipment?”

“Sure. Um, why are you in a hurry all of the sudden?” Kim asked, jogging over to the bare spot where she’d placed the last stake.

“I don’t like the way those clouds were piling up. We might get some rain.”

Kim glanced upward. Only green. Was it overcast? Under the trees there was no way to tell. “What did the weather report say?”

Lennox snorted. “That storms in the mountains can come up unexpectedly.”

“Okay. Good to know.” Kim didn’t object to the pace he set on the way back, although it took all her concentration to navigate through the trees and not trip on the uneven ground. It would surely be much worse going down that hill with the ground wet and slippery….

The weather held, though. Barely. When they burst from the woods and onto the track field behind the high school, the sky was grey, and a cool wind had come up. But now that they were off the mountain, Lennox didn’t slow. He practically sprinted back to Ironhide. Kim wondered at his hurry, but imitated it.

Optimus’ door opened before she could reach for it. The cabp was warm and quiet. “What did you think of your first field assignment,” Optimus asked.

“Disappointing. He didn’t think it was a good candidate for retrieval.”

“I have some ideas. While the costs in resources would be high, I believe the risk of discovery could be minimized.” They eased back out on to the road, Ironhide again going first. Kim realized he was sporting a Canadian License plate.

“Mining on Earth is kind of hard to keep secret.”

“The deposit is roughly a hundred kilograms and less than twenty feet from the surface. The actual removal will take about three hours. The problem is getting the equipment in place. A ground bridge is…impossible to conceal.”

Kim’s headphone was still on. Ironhide was saying, “ _Will, what do you think of that Titan crew cab over there?_ ”

_“I think it’s been three years since your last reformat, and if you’re tired of the Top Kick, go for it. But I’d seriously look at the Lariat Supercrew.”_

_“Too fancy. Chromia would never let me live it down.”_

“ _She’s got this bias towards General Motors.”_

Smiling to herself, Kim scrawled a quick note. Selection and meaning of alt forms was another topic she didn’t know enough about.

They eased out of town and back onto the two-lane mountain road. Thunder sounded in the distance and Ironhide picked up speed slightly. It was noticeably darker, but that might only be because it was late. How late was it? “Optimus? What’s the local time?”

“It is three-fifteen.” So, not getting dark yet.

Lennox was asking Ironhide if Chromia had made a choice about a new alt-form. Damn. Kim didn’t know Chromia was reconsidering vehicle modes and she lived in the same side of the base as the mechs.

The trip up was going faster than the trip down. Sooner than Kim expected they turned onto the narrow gravel road. Thunder again, this time accompanied by a flash of light. There was a glyph that meant _Electrical discharge._ Would it also indicate lightening? “Optimus, how flexible are glyphs about changing meaning?”

Suddenly, Ironhide braked hard, sending up a shower of gravel as he pulled into the narrow shoulder. Optimus, slowing more smoothly, pulled up behind him. Kim looked around. There wasn’t any room to speak of between the track and the cliff face, certainly not enough to fit a Freightliner Cascade. They were still half in the ‘road.’ Not that anyone had tried to pass them since they had left for the paved road, but just stopping like this seemed like a bad idea. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

The storm broke with the sudden roar of fat droplets slamming into the windshield. Kim gasped at the suddenness of it.

Over the headset, she heard Lennox say, “ _Easy, ‘Hide. We’re fine. Storms in the mountains don’t last long. We can wait it out.”_

_“Slag this. Let’s just call for a bridge. We can leave from here.”_ Ironhide sounded angry. Kim wrapped her hands around the seatbelt again.

_“’Hide, I can see the highway in the pass across the way. I can see the lights from three houses from here. We can’t risk it.”_

Very softly, Optimus said, “Hold position, Ironhide.”

Kim turned off her microphone. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Optimus turned on his windshield wipers and switched the vents to defrost. He said softly, “In his alt-form, Ironhide relies almost exclusively on radar and passive sonar. The rain is badly blinding him.”

“Shit!” Kim said. “Scrap. But…you?”

“I have six external optical cameras and three external infrared cameras, in addition to my radar targeting array. I am sending Ironhide a situation report every point three-three seconds.”

The receiving part of her headset was still on. Lennox was turning the conversation back to alt forms.

“Why, um,” it was none of her damn business, and she had to ask anyway. “Why doesn’t Ironhide have all-weather sensors, too?”

Optimus shifted on his wheels, inching slightly closer to Ironhide’s tailgate. “Ironhide is very old. It is incongruous to say this to you, since by your standards even I am ancient. But Ironhide is more than twice my age, and he never lived a sheltered life.”

“He’s lost sensory input busses,” Kim guessed, horrified.

“Yes. On average, we manage twenty-two to twenty-seven sensory inputs. Ironhide has seventeen, and half of those are maximized for targeting systems.”

Over the headset, Kim could hear Lennox quietly telling stories about his kids. She tried not to think about Ironhide, blinded and helpless on an alien planet. Cyberton didn’t have weather like this. Several mecha had mentioned it. The wet, the mud, the rapid and brutal changes in temperature. It was too awful.

“Ask your questions, Kim,” Optimus said softly. “Fulfill your purpose.”

Kim swallowed. “How old are you?”

“It is difficult to answer for relativistic reasons. I think…the closest estimate is—roughly—seven thousand, two hundred and seventy-one years.”

“Earth years?”

“Yes.”

“You’re—you’re older than the bronze age!” she yelped, forgetting, for a moment, about Ironhide, the need to stay calm in the field, or the fact that she was supposed to be taking notes. “You’re older than the Carthage. I mean, I mean… obviously protoforms don’t age the way organics do, but—you’re older than monotheism.” Seven thousand years—at twice that, Ironhide would be older than domesticated plants! Oh. By a lot. “Shit.”

“Humans tend to find the idea startling. We find it best not to mention it too often.”

“Yeah. I guess.” She was freaking out. She wasn’t supposed to freak out. Informants might avoid telling you things they guessed might upset you if you got upset at things they did tell you. She took a deep breath. “Right. So. How do you have anything in common with us? I mean, we must be like…mayflies.”

“The reference….Ah. I see. Yes, an unpleasant thought. But our difference in scale of time is only one difference among many, and not a larger barrier to understanding than others.”

“But…we must seem so _young_. So shallow and shortsighted!”

“We and you live in the present. _Now_ is the same for both of us. As for what I see in your species…it is clearly illuminated by Captain Lennox’s actions at this moment: his compassion and flexibility in understanding distress so far outside his own experience, his kindness in freely offering what comfort he can…. speaks well of humans.”

Kim closed her eyes and leaned sideways against the door. “I have to ask,” she whispered.

“What question?”

“Lifespan. Mech lifespan.”

“Ah. I see. Human lifespan is a comparatively narrow, predictable range. It is not so for us.”

“You could live forever?” that didn’t sound so bad. Kim reached for her pen and notebook.

“No. But it is not a question of time and senescence for us. It is a question of circumstances. With abundant energon, gentle wear, and aggressive maintenance we can live… hm. The longest I am aware of was Alpha Trion. He lived nearly thirty thousand earth years. And he did not die of natural causes. Under conditions of war, of course, such an outcome is unlikely for any of us.” He sighed. “You were right. This is unpleasant to speak of.”

The rain was easing off. Kim looked out the window. The sky was lightening to the east. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Your anticipation that changing our physical placement would affect our interaction was correct,” Optimus said suddenly. “This is considerably more intimate.”

Kim sat up. She glanced at the dome light—but of course there was nothing to make eye contact with. “Is it a problem? Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Kim started to adjust her position, remembered that she was still actually sitting on him. “It would be okay if it did. I’m just saying.”

“I appreciate your concern, but it is not necessary. Our conversation does not make me uncomfortable.”

Kim patted the dashboard in—she hoped—a companionable way. She had no idea how she was going to live up to this trust. She would just have to keep trying.

Over the headset, Ironhide interrupted a story about the horrible agony of stepping on legos to announce that the rain was letting up. “I’ve got a clear beam. Let’s get outta here.”

Kim’s seatbelt firmly adjusted _itself_. Captain Lennox checked in with base with an ETA for the ground bridge. Ahead, Ironhide eased back onto the road.

***

When they came out of the dark tunnel ( _hole in the universe, god, don’t think about that_ ), Chromia was waiting beside the control platform with Fixit and the human technicians. Lennox quickly got out of Ironhide and stepped out of the way, so he could transform.

“I must discuss the results with General Morshower and compose a recommendation to Director Mearing. We will need to cancel this afternoon’s interview,” Optimus said.

Oh. Right. Her cue to leave. Kim gathered up her purse, making sure no stray pens or power bars had fallen out. Her seatbelt undid itself. The door opened. Kim made the jump to the grating floor.

Optimus continued up the corridor to the NEST headquarters. Over at the controls, Maggie waved. Kim waved back. Ironhide approached Chromia and stopped a very short distance away. They stood there, very close but not touching, for several long seconds. There was something familiar about that. Wasn’t there? Did Ironhide and Chromia _always_ stand that same distance apart?

Was social distance a thing for mecha after all?

Well, Kim wasn’t going to ask them about it today, not after the rotten afternoon Ironhide had had. She went over to Maggie and Fixit instead. “So. When you said you worked on the bridge…. This wasn’t what I pictured.”

“What? Oh! Right.” Maggie was—now that Kim was paying attention--Australian. And cheerful. And perfectly made up. Her hair was in a French roll. Seeing her stand next to Fixit, who looked like an extra from a particularly gritty and realistic science fiction movie was jarring. “Give us five minutes to run the shutdown sequence, and we’ll give you a tour.”

“That would be great.” Kim stepped out of the way to wait, watching Ironhide and Chromia walking back to the Autobot section. The passage was barely wide enough for it, but they walked side by side, coordinating stride, still that same distance apart.

**Chapter 10**

Nevada was getting uncomfortably hot. Kim thought of the cool dampness of Canada and shifted her new folding chair into Optimus’ shade as soon as he sat down on his customary boulder. “Evening,” she said, flipping to the list of questions.

“Evening,” he responded, turning his head to scan the desert. “Perhaps you would explain the reason for that particular greeting protocol.”

Kim glanced regretfully at her list of questions and set them aside. “You understand greeting protocols. You have them too.”

“I meant the particular protocol where we agree on an analog categorization for the time of day.”

Kim’s lips compressed and her eyes grew wide as her thoughts staggered to a halt.

“Also, I have been unable to identify the criteria by which humans determine if the time between seventeen-seventeen and eighteen-ten is evening or afternoon.”

“Oh…dear,” Kim said.

“Also—and my sample is now over eighty-individuals and one-thousand, five hundred and sixty-one instances—although patterns are discernable, the criteria are not.”

Kim managed a deep breath. “So—what exactly are you asking?”

“What function does the agreement about the analog label perform, and what criteria are applied to make the determination?”

Kim clamped down hard on her laughter. Teeth locked, she held her breath. So earnest. So well meaning. She could not laugh at him!

 _Humans have such fuzzy, analog brains that they have to negotiate an agreement on what part of the day they are in when they greet each other_ — _our ‘reality’ must be a completely arbitrary set of ad-hoc compromises—_

Kim bent over and tried to hide her laughter in her knees.

Optimus sighed. “I have misunderstood the greeting protocol.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Kim gasped. “I’m not. I swear. Oh, God! How we must look to you! Of course, it looks like we’re crazy.” Her stomach hurt from failing to keep in laughter. “And you were putting up with us!”

“Perhaps you would explain,” he suggested pointedly.

There was hardly anything to explain. “’Good morning’ or ‘good afternoon’ is just too formal for some people. Or contexts. I bet Morshower always gives the whole greeting, right? But—Epps and Graham and Maggie?”

Optimus tilted his head back and studied the sky for a long moment.

“You aren’t exactly wrong. It’s a grey area, where late afternoon ends and early evening starts. But we don’t have to agree on it.”

The whirr of fans accompanied a shift in the air as his ventilation system clicked to high. Kim’s phone vibrated and she glanced down: a string of humor and apology glyphs streamed across the screen. “I am embarrassed to say how much processor time I have devoted to this,” he said.

“And you were too polite to ask why we were so obsessed with,” Kim sniggered, “agreeing about the general time of day.”

Optimus sighed. “I cannot afford to cause offense.”

Kim sobered. “Not so funny.”

“ _Very_ funny. However. It is your turn.”

Kim sat back in the folding chair. She had bought it that morning in Jasper. After yesterday’s gallivant around Canada interrupted the relentless swirl of transformer linguistics, she had extended the break and gone to dinner with Maggie the bridge technician. And also Fixit, who didn’t eat, of course, but came along for the company. 

Maggie described her job as ‘wrangling different kinds of geeks’ and ‘shoving round holes into square pegs’—Earth and Cybertonian technology didn’t interface well. Unlike mecha or other humans she seemed completely comfortable with Fixit. For his part, Fixit spent the meal alternating between criticizing how the humans ate (it was inefficient to just randomly shovel in food items rather than break them down into component nutrients that could be consumed in exact proportions) and projecting equations on the table so he could ask Maggie’s opinion on variables.

The third time he interrupted Maggie’s story about a ground bridge failure that combined with a navigation error to strand three mecha in downtown New Orleans with Mardi Gras starting (Bulkhead—still new to earth, too large for the narrow streets, and completely shocked by the human crowds and excesses—had completely freaked out) Kim glanced down and saw the question he was displaying. Her eyes blurred over.

Glyphs.

When Kim could finally speak it came out a squeak. “Maggie, can you read that?”

She shrugged, drew a change on a paper napkin, and said, “It’s math. A quantum field calculation. We can’t do it in our numbers, so I had to learn theirs.”

Wait, what? “How can the numbers be different? I thought numbers were the universal language?”

Maggie and Fixit froze and turned to look at her with similar expressions of surprise. After a moment, Maggie said. “Er. No. Well…..no.”

“Oh.”

Looking scandalized, Fixit leaned forward. “Mathematical principals are universal. But number systems are not interchangeable.” He nodded decisively.

Maggie said, “Try doing long division in Roman numerals: five into thirteen? Forty-one into nine hundred and two?”

While Kim pondered the tragic math failure of trying to fit the letter V into an X and three Is, Fixit clicked approvingly and transmitted a series of humor glyphs to Kim’s phone. Apparently, Roman numerals were hysterically funny.

Kim quickly tabbed back to a message she’d gotten the day before. “How would you translate this?” she asked Maggie. “Why is it funny?”

“’Everything’ and ‘excluding everything.’ It’s a null set. It makes sense mathematically, but it isn’t funny.”

Fixit craned sideways to look at the screen. “I remember this. The humor was in the context. Bulkhead was challenging Strongarm to a race. I don’t think he was serious. At least not about the idea he could win. Her response was classic.” He hummed happily.

“So the glyphs were only part of the conversation.”

Fixit sprouted a pair of short antenna, shrugged them (or something) and folded them away. “That is often true.”

Since Fixit wasn’t actually off duty (mecha being on a different schedule than the humans) he’d had to dash off soon after. Unlike the others, he had a pair of wheels at the base of his root form rather than walking peds. He sped off through the cafeteria very much like a mall cop speeding through by on a Segway.

“He’s…a little different.” Kim left the opening there.

“Yeah. He’s overclocked. I’m going to get some coffee. Want some?”

Overclocked? Dumbly, Kim shook her head. By the time Maggie had returned, Kim had stuffed down her curiosity and excitement. It was important not to get ahead of herself, to push for an answer she expected. Let the informants lead. She sounded almost casual when she asked, “What’s overclocked?”

Maggie dumped three sugars in her coffee. “You don’t—Oh. Right. No. Well, the work Fixit is doing is a little bit more than his processors were designed for. He compensates by running them faster than spec.”

Kim blinked. “He makes himself smarter by…thinking faster?”

Maggie grinned. “Don’t you wish you could?” 

“Why don’t they all do that? Is it safe?”

“Well, safe is a relative word. Ratchet doesn’t have the equipment yet to make replacement processors. If he burns out sectors, they can’t be replaced.” She shrugged. “But he’s durable. And careful. Ratchet monitors him every second _orn_. His coolant system is thermoelectric. It isn’t much of a risk.”

“But most mecha don’t…?”

“You can’t run combat subroutines if you’re overclocking. The timing there is very precise. That is why Fixit’s interactions seem _off._ It really is a matter of time for him. And time is not passing for his cognitive systems the way it is for the others. Or for some of his own internal systems.”

“So, does that…qualify as a glitch?” Kim asked.

Maggie stiffened. “No. And if you suggest it again, I will knock you on your aft.”

“Sorry! I really don’t know anything about these things.” Thinking quickly, Kim flaunted her ignorance. “About the timing thing—they talk to each other faster than they talk to us. Are they thinking a lot faster than us?”

That appeared to be the right question. Maggie’s frown turned thoughtful. “Yes? Sort of. They multi-task better than we do. Definitely. But some things we do by intuition faster than they can.”

It was a lot to think about. Kim was up late that night working on the notes, trying to remember every detail, trying to tease out how different facts fit together. She slept late the next morning and woke still unready to dive right back into the usual routine.

Breakfast? She was out of instant oatmeal. Also, granola, crackers, and applesauce. There was a lot of instant rice, tea bags, tuna, and microwavable stew. There was quite a lot of microwavable stew, but she didn’t want to live on it. She could go over to the NEST cafeteria, but doing that three times a day would just use too much time.

She thought about rice and tuna for breakfast and texted Bumblebee: I COULD USE SOME HELP. YOU FREE?

He immediately texted back a gif of Gomer Pyle, saluting.

I NEED TO GO SHOPPING. CAN YOU GIVE ME A LIFT INTO TOWN?

The wait was almost two seconds. The clip was from some 60s teen show, an earnest young man proclaiming “Dad says I can borrow the car!”

Kim shot back a humor glyph, put on her shoes, and skipped out the door.

A Volkswagen Beetle was not an inspired choice for cargo space. Even Kim’s own car would have been larger. She felt she owed him something for her role in his grounding, though. And, of course, anything she could do to cultivate his good will as an informant….

She packed the back seat with instant oatmeal, uht milk, crackers, nuts, anything she could eat in a hurry. Vegetables? Well, she ate at the cafeteria every day or two, that would have to do. Bottled tea? she could afford the luxury now.

She laid in more socks and underwear—fewer trips to the laundry would be better. A folding chair. A hat, because the days were getting longer and it was bright on the mesa. A stop for a tablet—a nice big screen to manipulate glyphs on.

“I’d love a meal that was actually tasty,” she said. “Where do the NEST guys go out to eat? You must hear things.”

ITALIAN OR MEXICAN? Her phone asked.

The Mexican would surely be Tex-Mex, everything would be covered with sauce. “Italian,” she said. “You know, Bee, I’ll be eating for an hour. At least. You…don’t have to stay here and wait. I mean, I won’t need anything.”

She smiled to herself as Bumblebee pulled away. Where was he going? That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question, wasn’t it? But she wasn’t going to ask. Oh, the answer was surely interesting and important, but Kim had plenty of time to find out later. And—more to the point—she could not report what she did not know. The details of Bee’s secret life could wait.

Lunch was a transcendent experience. So was fresh air and midday in the hot, Nevada summer. And humans, everywhere she looked. Humans, none of them in uniform. Some of them elderly or babies. It seemed very odd after just a few weeks with NEST.

Heh. And she missed the vibration of mech stEpps in the ground. And a new set of glyphs every time she looked at her phone. And the smell--the warm, metal smell of them.

The pasta was lovely, though. And Bumblebee, when he returned to pick her up, was in an ebullient mode. He was practically bouncing on his tires.

Kim didn’t ask where he went. Instead, she changed the subject: “There’s one more thing. And I hesitate to ask. But I really need a mattress. The cold war mattresses? I can’t even explain. We’re a soft species. We like soft beds that aren’t lumpy…But, the thing is, a mattress won’t fit inside you. And carrying it on top? I’m not sure that isn’t too undignified?”

Bumblebee showed an image of an ant carrying a crumb bigger than its body. So, at the last stop they tied a twin mattress to Bee’s roof and Bee cheerfully carried it home.

What had he done in that hour that made him so chill?

By the time they had returned and Kim had heaved her mattress up the mezzanine stairs, she was late for a surprise lesson from ratchet. She jogged around the corner to the infirmary to find Bulkhead positioned on his side on a medical berth. He had an eight-inch scratch along his left hip. The three engineers were poking it and muttering.

“What happened?” Kim called, climbing up the handholds at the end of the berth.

“Wrestling with Jazz,” Ratchet said tartly.

“Minor miscalculation involving me and the wall,” Bulkhead said cheerfully. “Self-repair could handle it. But Ratchet wants a demonstration.”

“Better now than in a real emergency.” He peered down at the engineers. “Well? How would you handle it?”

One shrugged. “It isn’t very deep. Buff right out, won’t it? New coat of paint—well nanites, right?”

Ratchet’s chin dropped slightly and the plates on his face tightened fractionally. “Anyone else?”

The other two glanced at each other. “Um,” one said finally, “exterior armor is a mesh structure, right? That knits, right? We can just leave it alone.”

“Suppose it was a slice all the way through?” Ratchet prompted.

“Spot weld.”

Kim pulled out her notebook, more interested in the way Ratchet was grilling his students then the details of repair.

“Is there any treatment in between?” Ratchet prompted with exaggerated patience.

Bulkhead waited patiently while Ratchet introduced raw materials jells: iron filings and carbon fiber in silicone paste; powdered steel with a little copper and coltan in mineral oil; microscopic iron and silicone beads in lubricant. The particles were fine enough to penetrate human skin, so jells always had to be handled with gloves.

Ratchet transferred Kim out of the way, onto a mobile work surface covered with tools. “Hey, wait!” Kim protested. “Isn’t that your surgical stuff? What if I contaminate something?”

Ratchet tilted his head back slightly and eyed her distrustfully. “Are you about to start leaking salty fluids on things?”

“Um…no?”

Ratchet snorted. “Then, no.”

Right. Germs weren’t a problem. Even dust wouldn’t be a problem unless a processor was unsealed. Slightly embarrassed, Kim sat down to watch the engineers get to work.

“We’ll start with a thorough cleaning of the injury site,” Ratchet said. “I assume you know how to handle solvent?”

“Aw, Ratch!” Bulkhead said. “It’s nothing! Just slap some paste on it and be done!”

“I’ll decide what’s nothing,” Ratchet said, adjusting Bulkhead’s position on the berth with a clank.

Kim’s phone pinged the arrival of a set of glyphs from Bulkhead. As far as Kim could make out, Bulkhead thought Ratchet was making a point about the consequences of carelessness. Then, looking up at her, Bulkhead dropped the blast shield over his left optic. That was a possibly an attempt at winking. Smothering a laugh, Kim winked back.

The cleaning process was accompanied by the sharp smell of ethanol and a series of hyperbolic glyphs about how cleaning the scratch and brushing on the jell was unbearably painful. Also, Bulkhead kept winking. Sometimes he mixed it up by simultaneously folding up each of the tiny lenses in one array. When a laugh finally burst forth, Ratchet gave Kim a dark look.

Kim was so distracted by Bulkhead’s clowning she almost didn’t notice Ratchet move in a couple of yards closer and hover over one of the engineers when he began his turn brushing goo into Bulkhead’s scratch. Ratchet’s hand hovered. Three servos transformed into—Kim thought—sensor equipment.

What had this engineer done to warrant this closer attention? Kim hadn’t noticed anything, either today or before, that would lead Ratchet to be distrustful. To Kim’s eyes, thee was noting that stood out about his attitude or technique. It wasn’t a good time to ask, obviously.

The lesson ran long—Bulkhead was probably right, Ratchet was drawing it out on purpose—and when it ended Fixit wanted to have some help with a network hub, so there wasn’t time to ask Ratchet questions then, either. Kim walked back to the NEST side of the base with the engineers (they took the long way past the ground bridge) shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation. They didn’t seem to notice that Ratchet had treated one of them differently.

Perhaps she should have been getting to know them. They might have useful insights on working with the Transformers. They hadn’t warmed up to her, though. Getting through their mutual disinterest would take some thought.

*** 

Settling in the comfortable canvas chair, Kim picked up her notebook, turned her phone to record, and set it where she could see the screen. “I think I need to back up a bit. Generally. I don’t think I know enough about sensory input.”

Optimus lowered his chin slightly and leaned against a boulder. “Ratchet covered this in a medical briefing.”

“I assumed everybody had the same basic information coming in. Like humans have senses that are mostly the same. But there is a lot of variety, and I can’t even picture what some if your sensory information is like.”

Optimus nodded. “Ask.”

Start obvious, let informants take the prompt and run with it. “Binocular optical arrays in your root form?”

“Yes.”

“Infrared, all the way through the visual spectrum I use, and into the ultraviolet?”

“Yes.”

It was off to a slow start, but she gently pressed forward. “And six arrays in your alt form?”

“No. They are not full optical arrays, but only…cameras.”

Ah. Progress. “How is that different?”

“Some details have been sacrificed for field of vision. No ultraviolet. Color vision is…diminished. You would consider my alt form almost ‘color blind.’ The cameras are maximized to adapt to varying light levels.” He grimaced slightly. “Driving among humans whose vision is _not_ adjustable… the courage of your species astounds me.” He voiced an elaborate sigh.

“Right. Your driving is perfect and you see three-sixty in all light levels. But you are surrounded by maniacs who are half-blind and distractible.”

“And may be operating at a diminished capacity in addition to that.”

Kim smiled. “I had not thought of it from your perspective.”

“Your perspective is incomprehensible. I cannot imagine putting a soft body in a badly made metal shell with blind spots and then piloting it at highway speeds faster than my own reflexes.”

“Ouch. When you put it that way it’s totally glitched.”

“So to speak. However. My vison in alt form is not only around me, but also above.”

Kim scribbled that down. Right. One of his directions was up. Because Decepticons could fly. Serious again, Kim asked, “What else?”

“In my alt form, a set of dedicated infrared cameras—positioned for avoidance of stray mammals.” Armadillo. Deer. Dogs. Cows. Humans? _Scrap._

Kim nodded and made no comment.

“In my root form, electromagnetic antennae are housed in my helm. Radar is maximized for combat subroutines. LIDAR is for targeting only. I do not have a use for it under normal operation. Radar and magnetic navigation are housed here.” He shifted and leaned down, giving Kim a good view of his helm’s central crest. “On the sides are antennae for radio communications, passive and active sonar, and audio.” His voice had gotten very quiet, but perhaps that was only a concession to being so close.

Kim swallowed. “How many radio channels can you monitor at once?”

“Simultaneously? Seven. However, I can only broadcast on three frequencies at once.”

Maggie had said mecha were better at multitasking. Kim nodded, wrote the notes, winced at the strange awkwardness as she asked the next question. “Where are your ears? Audio pick ups?” 

They were small, almost unnoticeable. Two at the back of his helm just above the neck junction, one at the front at the base of the radar array. All of them could be turned down—or completely off—at will. “I can’t turn my ears off,” Kim said.

“No,” he agreed, looking almost pitying. “We are not finished.”

“What next?”

“Humans are very tactile. You gather a great deal of information through your exterior surface.”

“We do,” she agreed.

“Physical contact itself is meaningful.”

“And not for you.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not in the same way.” He rested his hand between them. “My exterior armor registers temperature and pressure. It does not feel sensations of pain or pleasure.”

“No _pain_?” that contradicted what Ratchet had said. Mesh armor should register mild—compared to human experience—pain.

“The receptors in my outer armor layers are disabled.”

Kim put down her pen and rested her palms together. “Does Ratchet know?”

“He knows. He does not approve.”

How far should she push? Was she on the edge now? She asked the next question: “Is this dangerous?”

“No. Damage to exterior mesh is not, itself, life-threatening. The error accounting system tallies damage, which is adequate for combat. Pain is not useful data at that level.”

“Is disabling the armor pain receptors…common?”

“Shutting down those systems requires unusual skills.”

“Who--You did it yourself?” Ratchet would not have helped.

“Yes.”

Kim glanced away. The sun was getting low, and the solar panels had tilted to follow the angle of the light. “Is this too personal?”

Patient, quiet, Optimus shook his head slightly. “It is only mechanics.”

Kim nodded, rolled her shoulders, picked up her pen. “Ironhide said you keep track of the location of humans by our electromagnetic fields.”

“For safety purposes, yes.”

“What do we seem like, perceived that way?”

“I’m not sure I can describe it. Small. Complex. Rapidly changing. Sometimes erratic.”

“Can you tell us apart? With just the EM field?”

“At the distance we are now, yes. At more than ten or fifteen meters…no.”

“When I come off the elevator and you have your back to me, do you know it’s me?”

He nodded. “I have vibrational sensors in my peds—they are part of my front axel in my alt form.” Vibrational sensors, different from contact perception. There was already so much—how could there be more? “The audio sensors in my helm are quite sensitive and humans are distinctive in their movement and sound.”

“Do you look at humans with sonar?”

A small shrug, eerily silent from a being so large made of metal. “It is not very revealing. To my sonar you appear as fluid of varying density.”

Kim laughed softly. “’Ugly bags of mostly water,’” she said.

His head snapped up and his optical arrays shimmered as they adjusted focus. “Absolutely not!”

“It’s a reference,” Kim said quickly.

His chin lowered slowly. “I see. The context is…interesting. I am not sure I am reassured by the assumption that ‘alien’ would be necessarily ‘ugly.’”

“I think the reminder that ‘beauty’ depends on point of view is useful to us.”

“Point of view,” he said. “And possibly the medium of ‘viewing?’ Hm. Continue with your questions.”

Kim flipped back to the list. “Smell?”

He lifted his hand and one of the fingers opened and folded back to reveal a three-inch, pale grey probe. “This is an active chemopreceptor. It must physically contact the sample to maximize efficiency. Passive chemical analysis is currently located at the intake ports of my ventilation system.”

“What smells bad to you?”

“Again, this is an area where we share little in common. For humans, smell is directly linked to emotion in the brain?”

Kim nodded.

“For us there no direct link between those sub systems. Dangerous smells trigger alarms. Unfamiliar smells trigger curiosity. Most smells are simply data.”

“How do humans smell?” she asked.

“I mean no disrespect.”

 _Oh, boy._ “Of course. This conversation is data.”

“We find it amusing, the sheer quantity and variety of volatile chemicals emitted by humans. And then, the artificial effort you expend to remove, inhibit, or disguise your scent.”

“So…we stink?”

“No. The sensation itself is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. For the most part. Combat experience has labeled the smell of human blood a high-priority alert.”

Kim thought she could read between the lines of that. Her hands were sweating, and she paused to wipe them on her shorts. They had seen enough of their comrades bleed that that the smell was upsetting. _Damn._

_Oh._

“Um, human females….”

His fact plates shifted into an expression of calm puzzlement. Kim was betting that was a communications protocol—part of the English language packet—rather than an innate response. However, this was not the time to ask.

“Menstruation,” She said.

“Yes? Oh. No. It does not smell the same to us as an injury.”

“I’m glad.” Very.

His optical lenses shifted slightly. Kim wondered if he was adjusting to maximize a different light frequency. Or was it a system reset? Ratchet had mentioned that sensory systems did calibration cycles. While she was framing the question delicately—because she didn’t want it to sound like she was asking if he had a nervous tick or something—he leaned slightly closer and said, “Since you have mentioned menstruation….”

The previous line of thought slid out of Kim’s mind. “Yeah?”

“A regular and frequent reminder of your unused fertility…I would find that depressing.”

Where to even start with that? He sounded so earnest. “You understand _depressing_?” she asked.

He answered quietly. “I have first-hand experience with feelings of despair and sadness. Although, not the clinical state. I do not have a brain chemistry.”

Kim should write down ‘no brain chemistry’ and circle it with lots of questions marks to follow up later, but this conversation had suddenly gotten too intense for notes. _Unused fertility_. He was fertile, the _only_ one who was fertile, the last accessible source of children his people had, and they did not have the resources for nourishing them. “It’s inconvenient,” she said. “Messy and uncomfortable, you can’t imagine. But it’s not sad; not using my fertility doesn’t damage it.”

“Each wasted ova?” he offered.

“I was never meant to gestate all of them. I couldn’t, even if I were pregnant all the time. And if I was, I couldn’t raise all of them well. And it would probably kill me, anyway, if I started at twelve and just kept….” Kim shrugged and grimaced.

“According to my research, human young are very helpless and come with only the most rudimentary communication and skills packets?”

“It takes years. Literally years—which is a much longer time for me than for you. Parenthood is a huge investment and a huge risk,” Kim said.

“Risk?” he asked, his head angling back slightly.

“Sometimes it goes wrong—the gestation or the raising.”

“Oh.” He paused, probably to check his research. “I see. Being a Prime is not like being a parent.”

“No. I don’t think it could be. Um. Are any of the autobots here, I mean, from the Matrix?”

“ _I_ am from the Great Matrix. But I was not its guardian then.” Kim’s phone flashed a minor humor glyph. Kim wondered if that was just incongruity humor or if there was actually a category of mech reproductive jokes. “I wielded the Matrix to kindle Strongarm’s spark.”

“But she isn’t your daughter.”

“No. She is my comrade. And, I remind you, she is not female.”

Kim nodded. 

“I think that is enough for tonight.”

A dismissal—more abrupt than usual? Kim wasn’t sure. She gathered up her notebook and phone. “You coming in?”

“Mm. Not for a while,” he answered, rising slowly and turning to look out across the dessert.

***

She was up late organizing and typing the field notes from the interview. When she got tired, she reminded herself that in the old days it was done with a manual typewriter and carbon paper—but then she had the thought that in the old days you at least knew how your informants’ sensory organs worked. _If I have this talk with every one of them I’ll get a different set of answers._

She would have to, eventually. Jazz might be next—he delighted in exploring differences. Ironhide might be awkward: were his sensor limitations considered a kind of disability? Did the concept even translate? What if it was a stigma everyone was supposed to pretend didn’t exist? What if it wasn’t?

 _Optimus has turned off some of his pain_. The answer to _why_ was obviously ‘the war.’ But…because it slowed him down? Because the war had gone on so long he was tired of hurting? It was too awful to think about.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she was projecting. Compassion was an asset in the field—when working with humans who had brain chemistry and mirror neurons. _It isn’t just the culture that’s different._ _He doesn’t think like I do. He doesn’t think_ in the way _I do._

_Don’t assume._

_Don’t assume._

_Don’t assume._

He had turned off his pain! Not in his skin. It wasn’t skin. And the error messages still worked.

_Scrap._

***

Ratchet, the next morning, was actually enthusiastic about discussing how his sensor systems were different from the standard packages. His sonar was much more sensitive—he could, if he wished—distinguish particular humans by sonar alone. Most of his fingers, which he always called servos, folded back for some kind of sensory array in addition to housing specialized tools. He had a retractable camera that could see nanites. Since coming to earth he had added a microbe database for identification purposes. It had been a bit disconcerting, he confessed, to be surrounded by billions of organisms he could not recognize.

“When you became a doctor, was it hard, getting all these sensors added?”

“Added?” he gave a snort. “I was designed and build a medic. All of my sensors have been upgraded. Repeatedly. But nothing was an ‘after-market addition.’ I am a real medic, not a makeshift approximation of one.”

Should she apologize? Or just double down on the ignorance and let him correct her at length. He seemed to almost like that approach…. “But what if you hadn’t liked being a doctor? Would you have to do it, just because you had all that extra equipment?”

She had half expected Ratchet to pounce with indignation. Instead, he frowned thoughtfully, put down the part he’d been tinkering with, and gave her his full attention. “It did happen occasionally,” he said. “Sometimes a mech would reject his purpose—or even his frame design. Alterations can be made. I mean, you couldn’t turn a dock worker into a physician—if a protoform doesn’t have the sensory busses you can’t add extra inputs and expect….Well, no. But—if you have the parts—you could rebuild a dock worker into a first class orderly.” He sighed. “We rebuilt engineers and librarians into war frames.”

“Oh. But you liked being a doctor?”

“It is my deepest purpose,” he said. “But it is not all I have been. At different times, I have been an emergency response administrator, a scientist, a legislator.”

“How old are you?”

He snorted. “In local years? I have no idea.”

“Are you older than Optimus?”

“Much!”

“Older than Ironhide?”

“Only slightly. A few hundred of your years or so.”

***

She tried to go to lunch in the military cafeteria. She didn’t make it a third of the way through the base before she had to retreat. The syntax on all the signs seemed wrong. All the furniture and equipment seemed too small and crowded too closely together. She kept trying to picture people as bags of varyingly dense fluid or small regions of disordered energy.

 _Culture shock,_ she thought. It was ahead of schedule, but her situation was unique. _It’s going to be early and horrible and I never did research in a totally foreign_ human _culture. How am I going to deal with my reaction to actual aliens?_

She ate microwave stew for lunch on the mezzanine couch, watching the ‘Bots come and go below her. Bumblebee asked if she needed anything. “Thank you anyway,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really think the 4 million years thing was a mistake.
> 
> That initial mini-series was supposed to be all there was. The 4 million years buried in a volcano was a very good shift from Cybertron to Earth, a refocus of attention to get them *here*. 
> 
> Only then they commissioned a whole season and Cyberton got back into things, which produced some cool plots. However, four million years just doesn't work. Four MILLION years don't go by with almost nothing changing. Anywhere. It's just not a scale of time that can fit into a plot. 
> 
> And creatures that routinely live four million years? They would have nothing in common with humans.


	5. Part 5: Culture Shock

**Chapter 11**

“I have questions about human religion,” Optimus said that night as he settled onto the mesa.  “I understand that can be a delicate topic. If you would rather not....?”

“It’s fine,” Kim said, brightening. It would be a relief to think about human things for a while.

“Religious beliefs contain assumptions about the fundamental nature of reality.” He paused, perhaps waiting for a correction or addition. Kim just nodded encouragingly. “How can people of different religions interact with one another and form relationships when they disagree on basic ideas of what is real—or even what reality means?”

Kim opened her mouth, shut it, took a drink of water from the bottle she’d brought up. “Sometimes they can’t. Sometimes we have religious wars. Although there are usually also practical reasons for those.”

“General Moreshower is Roman Catholic. You are listed as non-practicing Protestant.  Can you work with him?”

“We’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring differences like that,” Kim said. “I mean, Americans. And the army. Most of the time. But, hey, you and I don’t agree about the basic nature of reality. Probably. I’m not sure what you think about reality. Or religion. I haven’t gotten that far yet.” The brief references to Transformer religion in the NEST files were vague and conflicting. Kim had assumed that anything which been safely ignored for four years was not a priority.

He paused. “You think I have a religion?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Is the Great Matrix sacred?”

“Set apart,” he murmured, “held in awe or fear.”

“That’s the one,” Kim agreed.

“The Matrix is not merely a symbol. It has a function.”

Kim lifted her hands innocently. This was a topic that might be best crept up on obliquely. “You and I are not going to fight about reality. I had friends in grad school who were Buddhist and atheist and Jewish. That part of reality wasn’t…what we needed to talk about.”

“You ignore the issue.”

“Sort of.”

Perhaps he was satisfied with that answer, because he moved on to the next question: “Why are there different human religions?” That one wasn’t too bad—she had sort of covered that in classes she had TAed. The questions after were worse.

Why were human religions so frequently preoccupied with death?

Were humans actually all going to radically different afterlives? Or were all afterlives lies?

Why did religions focused on the afterlife so frequently have materially successful leaders?

Why was marriage—in some faith systems—a religious matter, and if in some, why not all of them?

Embarrassed for her species and her own many gaps of ignorance, Kim gave the best answers she could. It was exhausting and horrible and kind of familiar. Kim had played put-the-anthropologist-in-her-place before. For lots of reasons--because someone thought she was prying or passing judgement, because she was a stranger, because she took charge of conversations including people older or more deserving than herself. She had played it with a doctor, with housewives, with a retired Orthodox priest, with an entire shop of cosmetologists....

And they had the right. Informants had the right to test you, to tease you, to remind you that you didn’t know everything….

Did all non-human animals have souls? Or was it only mammals?

Where was the soul located?

Informants had a right to remind you that you were being graciously permitted to come to _them_ , to invade _their_ community, to turn _their lives_ into data, to analyze _their_ culture.

Was there any possibility Shintoism was correct?

But what the hell had she done to bring on this relentless barrage of embarrassing questions? Had yesterday’s sensory questions been that personal? How had Kim possibly made a twenty-eight foot tall person made of steel feel so—so what? so unsafe? so judged? so examined?—that he was repeatedly making the point that her analog species with its haphazardly evolved brain was unable to form a basic concept of what reality was, could not prove it had a soul, could not keep a commitment to compassion even in religions that listed it as a holy obligation?

Whatever the reason, he had the right. She answered as honestly, as meekly as she could, facing her species’ shortcomings even as she laid them out for judgement.

Richard Lee and the Christmas ox, right? You took it when your informants put you in your place.

“Director Mearing is preparing for the eventual exposure of mecha to the wider populations of earth,” Optimus said, transitioning to a new topic.

“Uh, yeah. That is one of the long term goals of my project; explaining you to earthlings.” Her purpose; there were useful reasons for her to be here…. Kim rubbed her face with the back of her hands.

“A great many changes to your legal structures will be necessary before we can be classified legally as people with recognized rights.”

That sounded right. Humans didn’t even consider beings with 98% of their own DNA as legal ‘people.’ “Well…I think the ‘alien cool’ factor will help with that. And the inherent coolness of giant, _car_ aliens. Science fiction has been preparing us for years for the idea of people from other planets.  I think it’s doable.”

“Will it be necessary for us to adopt a human religion in order to be integrated into human society?”

Kim’s mind churned over possible answers for two or three full seconds before the actual question sank in. Her heart seemed to freeze. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

He wasn’t testing her. He wasn’t dominating her. He wasn’t reminding her of her own limitations.

_Oh._

_God._

He needed these answers and he had been _saving_ these questions, and if yesterday’s interview about sonar and electroreception had crossed some line, it wasn’t resentment they’d elicited, but permission to ask the terrible questions that—

\--frightened him? 

Kim scrambled out of the chair. “No. Absolutely not, no!” The thought was outrageous, repugnant. In a moment, she had closed the distance between them and was standing in what would be intimate distance between two humans. “No, you don’t have to join one of our religions.”

“Humans regularly kill those who refuse their religion.” No wonder he was frightened. Human zeal was terrifying. Of course this was what worried him. How stupid she had been not to see it!

“Yes. You’re right. That’s true.” She was close enough to his eyes to see the curve of each individual tiny lens. “But there is a lot of variety in being human. Some countries. Some ethics.” She had to swallow. “Here.  America. Some others. Freedom of religion is part of our identity. Extending that to you will validate that identity.”

“Kim, people have died for religion in this country _this year_.”

“Murder isn’t war. But fine—you’re right. We suck. But there isn’t just us. Canada. England.  Japan. You won’t have to convert. You won’t have to do that. I mean, I don’t know what is going to happen in the next ten or twenty years, but…not that.” She tried to calm down. Was this feeling panic? Or rage? Or just shame that he would fear this of her people—and he wasn’t wrong! “You won’t have to do that.” She tried to think. Surely, even something this awful could be analyzed.  “In fact, when the world finds out about you, there will be a line wanting to join _your_ religion.”

“We do not have a religion.”

“The files mention a ‘Primus.’ Nobody seems to want to go into detail. But--you tell me—why was it defined as ‘Ultimate Creator?’”

His head tilted slightly back while the optics flickered and refocused. “You would classify Primus and Unicron as divinities,” he whispered.

“I don’t know. What’s Unicron?”

He pulled back slowly and resettled sitting upright. “Unicron is the Destroyer.”

“That sounds like maybe something I ought to hear about?”

“Yes….”

“Something I should ask you about some other time?”

“Yes.”

Kim took a step back and looked around. It was dark and growing cool. In the distance, she could see the lights from Jasper. All she could hear was the quiet, open desert. “I get that there are a lot of things that can go wrong, and the Decepticons, and everything….But I promise if everything else works out, it won’t—you won’t then have to give up who you are to be welcome here. Not like that.”

“You are certain.” It was not a question, but he sounded slightly surprised.

Kim almost laughed; she was uncertain about almost everything else. “This one thing. Yes. You will not have to join one of our religions.”

“You believe concern is unwarranted,” he suggested.

“No. I just think it is solvable.”

He considered for a long moment. “Will you help us?”

“Yes.”

***

Writing up her notes that night, Kim really would have liked to talk to somebody. When complicated stuff came up in Boston, she’d had her advisor to talk to. Other students. Even her family, for some things. All of her work here was classified. Her family thought she was working on military/civilian relations.

Scrap.

She was up late and would have liked to sleep late, but an early meeting with Agent Fowler had appeared in her schedule.  The FBI office was located in a dead-end off-shoot in the maze of hallways that made up most of the human half of the hollowed out mesa. Bill offered her a cup of coffee. Kim took it, but did not feel obliged to actually drink any this time.

“How are you settling in?”

“Best job ever.” Kim shrugged. “I think I’ve got the living quarters sorted out. And the food.” She smiled. “I don’t understand—my father used to make jokes about army food.”

“I don’t even notice food anymore.” Bill leaned back in his chair. “Madsen says you’ve encountered their humor.”

“Madsen? Oh. Maggie at the bridge. Well.” Kim made a face. “I’ve …located some of it.”

“In the math, she said. Are the math jokes funny?”

“A lot of it is context. I have a hard time following it.”

“Huh. Any insights into the next prank?”

“Prank? They prank? Who do they prank? Each other?”

Bill gave a disheartened and long-suffering sigh.

“What do they do?” she asked in mystification.

“When Cliffjumper found out there were fruit and vegetable import laws, he thought it was silly.  So he started bringing back contraband vegetables. Peaches. Mangos. Potatoes. Artichokes. Lichi nuts. God damn durian once. None of his partners ever admits they know how he gets them—or how they appear in his trunk.”

Kim blinked. “Okay. So…he brings vegetables and then….?”

“That’s it. Well, then we eat them—it is a federal crime to let them leave the base. Not the durian, obviously. We didn’t eat that.”

“That seems fairly harmless,” Kim said.

“Bulkhead got into the spirit of the thing. But he brought back an alligator.”

“Like—a baby alligator?”

“Oh, no. Adult, bull alligator. About six feet long. He’s not allowed to patrol anywhere near the gulf coast now.”

“Oh.”

Bill turned to his computer and opened up a window. “A favorite is taking selfies at famous landmarks.” He tilted the screen so Kim could see: A silver Porche parked in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A yellow volkswagon beetle parked in front of –was that the house from the Brady Bunch? A matched trio of motorcycles at some state capitol. The silver Porche again at— _the Kremlin_?

Kim looked and looked again. It didn’t make sense. “How do they take selfies?”

“Ah. _Well_. That’s the complicated part. They manage to coordinate their patrol schedule with the Google Earth sweep. Their selfies are the streetview project.”

“But—that’s _Jazz_!”

“Yes,” Bill said sadly. “Yes, it is. As far as I can tell, the only one who isn’t getting up to wacky hijinks is Prime. Let’s see, what else? Well, there was the time Jetstorm decided to test to see if cow tipping worked.”

“God, no.”

“He was very apologetic after that, I admit. And dented.”

“This is not a side I’ve seen,” Kim protested. “They—they razz each other and make math jokes!”

“Yes. How fortunate for you. I don’t suppose it is possible Prime might have declared his project off limits?” He said sourly.

Kim sagged. “Scrap. If that’s true it has got to be inhibiting rapport.”

Bill shrugged. “Good luck with that.” He cleared the computer screen and became suddenly more businesslike. “Aside from the lack of whimsy, how is it going?”

Kim sat up straighter. “I’m generating a lot of data. Analysis—I’m just starting to sort out what it all means.”

“How would you feel about writing up some reports—or possibly interaction guidelines? I’m thinking about sensitivity training. Heh. And if you can find out, how to avoid their practical jokes.”

“Soon, maybe. There’s some stuff you could probably use…but really, you’d have to ask my boss.”

Bill sighed. “He said he didn’t object and to ask you. Look, Ratchet fired another trainee last night. I’ve lost count how many he’s gone through.  We’ve given him the best civilian and military engineers. We’ve raided NASA, Lockheed, MIT. We’ve given him men, women, Americans, Chinese, Indians.”

“Was it—wait—was it, uh, Doug? What did Ratchet say about him?”

“Yes, it was Douglas Brown—how did you guess?—and all Ratchet said was that he didn’t have the temperament.” 

“That’s…odd. Ratchet explains everything. In detail. Relentlessly.”

“Well, he doesn’t explain why he kicks out the human mechanics.” He sighed. “Why did you guess it was… Doug?”

“Yesterday, they were doing a minor repair. Ratchet monitored his work very closely. Unusually closely. And it wasn’t like if he’d made a mistake it would have hurt Bulkhead. They weren’t doing anything delicate.” She shrugged. “I thought it was weird, but I haven’t had a chance to ask him about it.  Does Doug have any idea what happened?”

“Not a clue, he thought everything was--” He broke off, glancing down at his ringing phone. “It’s your boss, I have to take it.”

Kim started to rise. He motioned her to sit still. “Morning, Optimus. I’ve got your anthropologist here--” He went still. “Where?” He turned to the computer and began opening windows. “When…? I agree….Yes, all right.” Without taking his eyes off the files he was flipping through, he set the phone down. “We have a confirmed Decepticon contact.”

Kim sat up. “What?”

“NEST is deploying at nineteen hundred.” He blanked the screen and stood up. “I assume I don’t need to tell you that combat is _not_ something you will be observing.”

“Combat? I will absolutely not be observing combat.”

“Good. And stay out of the way. I don’t want you distracting any of them. Maybe you should take the day off?”

“I’ll stay on the mezzanine.”

“That will do. We’ll finish this meeting some other time. I have to get going.”  He followed her out of the office and jogged ahead down the hall.


	6. Part 6: Participant Observation

**Chapter 12**

Kim took the long way back to ‘Bot country. Everything was different now. People moved faster and talked less. The training areas were empty. Big equipment was moving.

Kim retreated to the balcony and watched from a distance, her phone open to observe the public glyph channel.  She had a good view of most of the large computer screens set up for satellite monitoring, and many of the conversations were vocal and in English. It was a lot to pay attention to.

The Decepticon had been detected on a small island in Indonesia. They didn’t have a positive ID on which Decepitcon it was, but they were ninety percent sure there was only one and it was very large. Kim wondered how large was ‘large’ to a mech, but she was acutely aware that the most useful thing she could do was stay out of the way, so she didn’t ask.

The vast missile silo seemed almost crowded with mecha. No one was sleeping, no one was on patrol, no one was training.  Kim watched, writing down what she saw, following the conversations she could.  It was all very fragmented.

She took a break to get a tuna kit for lunch, and when she returned the scene had changed slightly.  Jazz was standing by himself near the entrance tunnel. No one was near him. His body shape…was weirdly different. Kim set her lunch aside and walked the edge of the balcony.  Was it quieter? Maybe a little. What had she missed?

One corner of the balcony overlooked part of the infirmary.  On the floor below, Fixit was sorting through trays of medical supplies. Kim couldn’t imagine why—Ratchet was always tidy and his equipment was always organized—but she tentatively seized the opportunity. “Hey, Fixit? Can I ask you a question? Or would that distract you?”

“Your question has not interrupted my work.” He swapped trays without missing a beat. “Would you like to ask another?”

“What’s wrong with Jazz?”

“Can you be more specific?” He lifted a chunk of something from his tray, sprayed it with something glittery, and set it back down.

“He looks…lumpy.”

“Ah. His weapons protocols are active.”

Kim stood up and looked around. She sat back down and said softly, “Why aren’t anyone else’s? And why is he standing all by himself?”

Fixit’s helm sprouted antenna, one of which waved in the direction of the assembly area. “Jazz and Prime are currently….disagreeing.”

“What?” Kim glanced at her phone. Nothing on the public channels—either for text or glyphs—hinted at conflict between Optimus and his second in command. “Over what?”

“Prime has decided that it would be imprudent to continue to deploy both Ironhide and Jazz in the field at the same time. Of those currently on planet, Jazz is the best strategist and Ironhide is the best tactical commander—losing either would be a great blow. Losing both would be devastating. Now that there are enough Autobots on Earth to hold some in reserve, they will no longer be deployed together.  Jazz is angry that he is to be left behind.”

“Oh.” Kim wrapped her arms loosely around the railing and braced against it so she could lean out and get a better look at Fixit. “Why is Jazz the one staying here?”

One of Fixit’s antenna twitched in Kim’s direction. “Prime is going,” he said, as though that explained everything.

“Prime is going….so Jazz can’t?”

“Prime is going, so it is Ironhide’s right to go as well.”

“I don’t understand. Why does Ironhide go with Optimus?” Ironhide had gone on the mission to Canada. It had not occurred to her before that this might be significant.

Fixit transformed his hand into a flexible sensor probe, dipped it into a beaker of something, considered for a moment, and resealed the beaker. “Ironhide is the Prime’s bodyguard.”

“Oh. I had no idea. Was that in the NEST file?”

Fixit swapped trays again. “I do not know. NEST documentation is very odd. It should have been. Ironhide’s position is not a secret. Ironhide has been acting as protector since before I was brought online. Ironhide will go with Optimus Prime. The Prime will not deny him this purpose.”

Kim stood up again and turned to look out over the main floor. Jazz was still by himself and bristling with weapons.  Ironhide was nowhere to be seen. Optimus was calling up data on the satellite station.

When she turned back to Fixit he had moved to the next cabinet.  Kim had to lie down next to the wall and angle her head sideways to see him. “Fixit, what channel is this discussion taking place on?”

“The argument is private. The channel is coded.”

“So…how do you know what it’s about?”

“The argument was inevitable.  I know it is happening now because Jazz’s is flaring.”

“You mean he’s showing his weapons?”

“No, the flaring of his magnetic field. He is cycling between forty-one megahertz---Oh dear. I apologize. Bumblebee has told me it is impolite to remind humans of their deficient perception.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kim said automatically. “I don’t mind.” _He can see Jazz’s electromagnetic field. They can all see each other’s fields._ She had asked Optimus what _humans_ looked like, but she had not asked what he perceived of his own people. _Stupid, stupid_. “It’s really interesting. There is a lot I have to learn.” Those were the right words, but they felt empty. _Stupid_ , she thought again.

Fixit’s antenna stretched upward and then retracted. “That is so,” he said. “It was pleasant speaking with you. I must go to the ground bridge now. It is time for system calibration. Goodbye.”

Kim got up slowly and went to the other side of the balcony.  Jazz’s body shape had returned to normal and he appeared to be deep in conversation with Windblade. Optimus was kneeling on the floor, slowly manifesting weapons from his body, one at a time. Chromia stood over him, inspecting each one as it came out. On the other side of the room, Jetstorm and Slipstream were doing the same for Drift.

Preparing for deployment.  It had been two years, but a Decepticon had been found.

Kim slowly retreated to the door at the rear of the balcony and slipped into the dim dinginess of the narrow hallway.

_Alien. Alien. Alien._

She would never understand them. She couldn’t even ask the right questions to understand them. She’d been trying to sort out their body language—but why would they even need that when they could electromagnetically see one another’s state of mind? What was the point of a human trying to understand them?

What had she been thinking, when she told Optimus Prime that sure, ethnography would work on extraterrestrials? _Stupid!_

It might all be for nothing anyway. They were going into combat in a few hours. They might not come back. Right? They were at war, and in war people died?

She made it to the bathroom before she threw up.

***

Miserably, she returned to the balcony and pushed the couch up right next to the railing. She laid her phone out so she could watch the glyph conversations flow past.  She should be taking notes. 

After a while she began listing pairings for armor inspection. Bumblebee and Strongarm inspected each other, but not all of the pairings were stable. Drift inspected Windblade, but Windblade and Ironhide inspected Bulkhead together. Chromia had inspected Optimus, but Kim saw no one inspect her—it was possible that the Prime would not deploy both of the First of Lines at once.

Kim didn’t know what—if anything—the pairings might mean. She just wrote it all down.

She was watching Strongarm and Bulkhead trade guesses about which Decepticon was hiding in Indonesia when Optimus approached the balcony.  She stood quickly. It still left her below his eye level.

“Afternoon,” he said.

Kim glanced down as her phone vibrated to announce the private-channel humor glyph he sent. She tried to smile. “Afternoon.”

“I’m afraid I must cancel our interview today.”

“Yeah. Indonesia.  You can… tell me all about it tomorrow.” This smile was a little better.

“You seem… distressed?” he said carefully.

“Can you see that in my EM field?” She asked, something pulling hard inside her.

“At this distance, yes.”

“Oh.”

“I am confident we can protect the human population.  Our target is some distance from their habitation. We will isolate him as we close in.”

“Oh. That’s—I hadn’t thought…Thank you.” She hadn’t thought about humans. Kim shut her eyes for a moment. “That’s good. Thank you.”

“You are a civilian,” he said after a moment. “I did not take that into account. You do not have relevant subroutines for this situation. Today’s action will be difficult for you to understand. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said quickly. “Just…win.”

He seemed slightly surprised at that. “Of course,” he said.

***

Kim paced the balcony.  She checked the time every few minutes.  She listened to the activity down the corridor to the ground bridge.  Once, looking over the infirmary, one of the two remaining engineers caught sight of her. “Oh, hey.” He said. “I don’t suppose you have any food? Ratchet has us on standby, and it’s going to be a long night.”

 _Food! Damn, I should have thought of that._ “Yeah, come on up.” She had not had humans here in her space before. She hadn’t had much of anyone in the space—even the minicons rarely visited the abandoned offices they were using for storage. It was strange to play host.

The engineers were happy to see chips and the cans of tuna and chicken. They were less happy with her choice of caffeine—they chose the warm six-pack of emergency Coca-Cola over the cold bottles of unsweetened tea.

“So,” Kim said, after they’d taken a few bites, “What happened to Doug?”

“I’m not sure,” said one. He was tall, with a military buzz cut. That described a lot of the men Kim had met recently. She thought his name was Dan. “He was a solid engineer. Never complained. Did everything Ratchet told him to.”

The other—very thin, very dark skin, French accent, possibly named Pierre—looked surprised. “He suggested buffing out the laceration on Bulkhead.  What kind of doctor makes an injury worse just so it will be less noticeable?”

“Was that him?” Kim asked. She hadn’t been paying much attention to the humans.

Dan sighed. “After tonight, it’ll be us gone, too.”

“What do you mean?” Kim asked.

“There’s combat. There’ll be injuries. Everybody know The Hatchet always finds an excuse to fire the trainees right after the first real repairs.  Damn. I was hoping we’d have longer.”

“Now that you mention it,” Pierre said. “We should get going.”  They each took an extra can of warm soda with them.  Kim watched them hustle down the hall, wondering what she was missing.

*** 

Seven o’clock arrived. The activity in the ground bridge suddenly died away, leaving a weird quiet echoing down the tunnel.  Arcee’s blue section buzzed up the stairs (up the stairs, on one wheel, like a unicycle, which Kim still found astonishing) and took a position overlooking the slice of the infirmary and tunnel.

Kim dragged the ancient sofa over and sat next to her. “Where’s the rest of you?” she asked. Arcee was almost always within line-of-sight of herself, but just now Kim could only see this one frame.

“I am also overseeing the ground bridge controls and with Jazz in mission control.”

“Where’s that?” Kim asked.

“You know the catwalk that goes up and down over in their main dome? That.” Kim knew the spot. The platform had computer desks and a water cooler and it could raise and lower to keep up with the eye-level of the tallest mech who was attending any given meeting. Jazz was taller than the Arcee section; she’d be looking up at the general and whoever else was there.

Arcee’s single optic dropped focus and she lifted her chin. “What’s wrong?” Kim asked.

“Contact,” she said. “He’s big. Nautilator—scrap! He’s running _toward_ the water… They were going to pin him—he’s a burrower. He’ll lose them in the sand.”

Kim pressed her hands together, wishing she was linked directly into the wifi, too…noticing that there seemed to be so few Decepticons left that they could identify the enemy by name during combat…remembering somebody in the cafeteria mentioning fighting a burrower—that they disappeared into the sand and came up under your feet…

“Pit. Ratchet!”

“I see it, Arcee.” Ratchet snapped without looking up at the balcony. To the human trainees he said, “Jetstorm and Strongarm are down. Both are leaking energon.  You, unfold the medical berths. You, get an active pallet out of storage.”

From Kim’s position, she could see the medical berth Pierre uncoiled—it had been curved up like giant, yellow roly-poly. As it flattened out the bug illusion was maintained—instead of being solid like a human bed, a berth had positional bars that stuck out on the sides like an insect’s feet. She couldn’t see Dan get out the active pallet, but she had seen it demonstrated—it was like a programmable beanbag chair, able to change itself from flat and thin to cylindrical and tall depending on the size of the patient and the height at which the doctor preferred to work.

 _Jetstorm and Strongarm_. Kim ground her teeth together. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“Prime’s got him by the tail…and is ripping pieces off. Nautilator is still trying to run rather than fight. I wonder if he’d surrender. It’s been _vorns_ since we had a prisoner.”  Arcee was rolling back and forth on her single wheel. Her left arm was currently a circular saw while her right sported a gun barrel from wrist to elbow.

Kim realized she had chewed her thumbnail off and stuck her hands in her armpits.

“All right, that’s three,” Ratchet called suddenly. “We’ll need the other berth, and the number two welding kit.”

“Who is it, Arcee?” Kim whispered.

“Ironhide just lost a leg strut. Ugh. Glad I’m not doing _that_ repair.” She was silent for a minute. “He’s still fighting. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be there!”

Kim couldn’t even try to picture it.

Below, in the infirmary, Fixit was pacing in a slow circle. The human trainees scurried around, fetching what Ratchet told them, laying out equipment, pausing occasionally to give tense looks in the direction of the ground bridge.

“Prime has dragged him into the open. Windblade and Bulkhead are moving into position to finish it. Prime is giving him a chance to surrender.” Arcee went very still for a moment. “He did not accept.” For the first time, she tilted her head to look in Kim’s direction. “It is over.” The Arcee segments had only a single eye each and a kind of mandible instead of a mouth. It was not a face that looked like a ‘face’ to Kim’s brain. Still, it looked—somehow, impossibly—smug.  With a whirr and a snap, her armaments folded away.

And then suddenly there was noise again: a vibration in the floor from the movement of big vehicles, the indecipherable echo of human voices—

Drift came running out of the tunnel, one of the minicons in one hand, the minicon’s _arm_ in the other. Jetstorm. Ratchet waited at the pallet. It was set up as a tall, slim column, just the right height to position the small body for Ratchet to work.

Small? Jetstorm was as big as a grown human man.

No, that comparison didn’t work. He was broader than a human would be. His armor was not an external shell but part of himself. The fluids pooling under him were purple and greenish-brown, not red. He wasn’t at all like a human.

Ratchet’s servos transformed into wicked-looking tools. Kim had a good view, but could not tell what he did with them as they flashed in and out of Jetstorm’s torn shoulder.

Drift, forlornly holding the detached arm, took a position at Jetstorm’s head.  He said nothing, made no attempt to touch his student.

Kim felt slightly guilty—surely, she should be taking notes on this. It was her duty.

There was no way she could.

Jetstorm cried out.  It was a dreadful keening sound, not like English or even a human’s throated yell, but not like the snatches of Cybertronix Kim had heard, either.  Sharply, Ratchet called for Fixit, but Drift lifted a hand to ward him off. “I have it,” he said, and uncoiled a cable from his wrist. He flipped open a tiny panel on Jetstorm’s wrist and snapped the cable into a socket. Jetstorm went suddenly silent.  Ratchet kept working. Fixit came over; he wasn’t tall enough to reach the patient so Drift had to lift him onto the pallet.

There was a commotion in the tunnel; Bulkhead came rushing out, pulling an active pallet behind him. It was low and flat and seemed to be running on a thousand tiny legs. Strongarm was slumped on top of it.  Kim couldn’t make out an injury, but then, she wasn’t even sure what she was seeing. Ratchet left Jetstorm with Fixit and Drift and helped Bulkhead shift Strongarm onto one of the berths.

“Ow! Pit, Ratchet, that hurts!” Kim almost cheered at the sound of Strongarm’s voice. She had not been sure the still form was alive.

Then Kim realized that a huge chunk of her abdomen seemed to be torn out.

“Move your hand away, Strongarm and let me see—What is this debris in the wound?” One of his servos transformed and he prodded at the ragged hole. With quick impatient movements he poked the  gash and then ejected something from his arm that glittered as it scattered on the floor. “Pierre, bring over a shopvac.”  It was the first time Kim had ever heard him call one of the human trainees by name.

The angle and distance made it hard to see, but it looked like something was sparking or arcing in Strongarm’s torn interior. Ratchet dumped more glittering detritus on the floor. And prodded again. And dumped again.

Kim felt a little ill.  She gripped the railing tightly.

Strongarm was motionless on the berth. Pierre climbed up beside her and plugged in the shopvac. Trying not to block Ratchet’s light, he suctioned the wound as Ratchet’s long, delicate servos--too quick to follow—flickered in and out of the gash.

Abruptly, at Kim’s side, Arcee’s weapons snapped into place again. “Ratchet?” she called nervously.

Without looking up or pausing the dance of his fingers, Ratchet called back, “I have his telemetry. He’s fine. Running a little hot is all.”

“What’s wrong,” Kim whispered.

“Optimus isn’t getting up,” Arcee answered. Her weapons were still out.

In the infirmary below, Ratchet was directing Pierre away from the wound. “See if you can clean out her lateral vents. There’s sand in everything. I swear, this planet….” He trailed off, his grumble drowned out by the whirr of the vacuum.

Suddenly, Kim’s phone let out a horrible explosion of sound. So did the mech-sized computer interfaces in the assembly area and some kind of overhead PA system Kim hadn’t known existed. The noise was Cybertronix; it sounded like a cross between a cat with its tail caught in a door and R2D2 being thrown down the stairs. She would find out later that in his panic Ratchet had overridden every communications channel in the entire base.

“I don’t understand!” Arcee shouted.  “Ratchet, what’s wrong?”

“Go!” Ratchet shouted. “Now, Arcee! Get him back here, now!”

Arcee vaulted the balcony railing, flipped to land on her wheel, and shot into the tunnel at highway speeds.  

Ratchet kept working. His servos had not paused, his gaze had not shifted.  “Dan, get the other shopvac, set it up at the second berth.  We need...I see that janitorial should have vacuum... I can’t get them on the phone.”

“They went off shift a couple of hours ago,” Dan said, towing the orange tub behind him.

For a moment, Ratchet’s hands stilled before dancing back to work.  “Fixit, report.”

“I’m almost finished here,” Fixit said. “Jetstorm is stable.”

“I am…not finished. You’re going to have to take the lead on the next patient.”

“Ratchet,” Pierre called, “It’s not working. I can’t fit the nozzle into her vent. It’s too big.”

Ratchet detached a thin, curved tool from one of his servos and handed it to Pierre, who began using it to scoop bits of sand out of Strongarm’s vent so it could be sucked up by the vacuum.

Kim swallowed hard. “Ratchet, there’s a vacuum up in the old army offices behind the balcony.”

“Go,” he said. “Run.”

The Cold War era vacuum was in the supply closet. It had a metal barrel. It rolled on wheels. There were multiple attachments.

As she passed her room on the way back, Kim also grabbed the little dustbuster she had brought with her from her grad school apartment.  Carrying the macho army vacuum one-handed down the stairs meant it repeatedly knocked into her calf.  Kim ignored that in favor of just making sure she didn’t fall down the stairs.

She stumbled to a halt at the yellow line, but Fixit motioned her over to the further medical berth.  He inspected the dustbuster, declaring the battery disappointing, and pointed out a power socket that would take Kim’s 3-pronged plug.

From here she had a clear view down the tunnel. She saw the reflection of red and pink light, heard the clatter and rumble of arriving mechs through the ground bridge. “Over by the wall,” Fixit instructed. “Get out of the way.”

For a moment Kim didn’t understand, but Dan caught her arm and pulled he back against the shelving.

It was, Kim realized, not one mech coming down the tunnel, but three. Bulkhead and Windblade were moving swiftly, hauling Optimus upright between them.  He made an awkward load, the they staggered more than once.

Optimus looked dreadful. Although his right optical array had a luminous shimmer that stood out in the dim tunnel, the left was dark.  Also—he seemed paler. Could that be right? But yes, even when they reached the brighter lights of the infirmary, Optimus still looked washed out. And that didn’t make sense—he had no blood, no skin, his normal color was painted on. Or nanited on. Or something. He couldn’t be  pale....

He was pale. And making a noise, a high-pitched, grinding squeal that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. Kim bit her lip.

Behind them, moving much more slowly, was Ironhide. He limped raggedly, leaning hard on Chromia. The lower third of one of his legs was twisted and torn.

Bulkhead and Windblade heaved Optimus onto the berth with a clatter.  Fixit lowered the berth almost to the floor and shot out a cable from his own wrist.

“Hurry up!” Ratchet snapped, not looking up from Strongarm. Kim realized there was a pool of dark green fluid collecting on the floor beneath her berth.  

Windblade turned Optimus’ arm and opened a tiny hatch. Optimus heaved, trying to pull away. She held him. Fixit snapped his connecter into the port. “Ratchet!” he wailed at once. “He is fighting me, and I don’t have override codes for a Prime!”

“Slag!” Ratchet snapped over his shoulder. “So help me, Optimus, if you make me come over there I won’t bother with override codes! Shut down your tertiary systems now!”

Fixit spun to Kim and the engineer. His antennae were extended and vibrating. “Now,” he said. “Now. Dan, from underneath, the dorsal vents in his helm. Kim, your smallest diameter attachment, you must help me with the intakes.”

Dan dove forward, slithering on his back beneath the berth under Optimus’ head, towing the shopvac tank behind. Kim, uncertain what, exactly, they were doing, hesitated.

“Hurry,” Fixit begged, taking the dustbuster and clambering—with a grace that was inexplicable in a creature that had one hand full and wheels instead of feet—onto the berth and then up Optimus’ shoulder. “We must hurry! His cooling system has failed.  He is overheating.”

The same handholds and steps that had been built into the berth to accommodate minicons also worked for humans. Kim hauled the Cold War vacuum up behind her, careful not to dislodge the cord or knock loose any of the attachments.

Fixit was braced at the far side of Optimus’ head, using a thin tube extended from one of his hands to suction out the deep air intakes at the side of Optimus’ helm.  The lower part of Optimus’ face was sealed off behind interlocking plates. One of his eyes was half-covered by its blast shield and caked in sand. The other eye had gone dark.

Fixit stopped suctioning, popped open a cup on his upper arm, and ejected sand on to the floor.  He wasn’t built for clearing such copious debris. It would take him forever, removing just a few ounces of sand at a time.

The smallest attachment Kim’s vacuum had was the width of two fingers.  That was easily small enough to fit into the vent openings. Kim turned on the vacuum and hesitated—how could she just shove something into the side of someone’s face?

He was overheating. His coolant system—like everyone else’s but Fixit’s—was adapted to Earth and relied on airflow.  Processors could be damaged by heat. Kim eased the nozzle in, flinching at the rattle and hiss as the vacuum gulped against resistance.

Careful to get it all, afraid she might push too hard, Kim cleaned out the first intake slot and moved on to the one below it. There was so much sand in this one she could see it. Kim swept the nozzle in tiny circles, tapping gently on the outside of the vent housing with her palm to knock all the sand free of the corners.  And the next intake. And the next.  And the next.

From below, Dan called out, “I’ve got the ex-vents. Are you ready?”

They weren’t, but Kim resisted the urge to rush. There was one left. She leaned sideways, trying to get a good angle on the arrow opening. The vacuum rattled and whined as it sucked up the sand.

She finished her side while Fixit was still struggling with his third slot. Several times a minute he had to stop and empty his small receptacle.  Kim, crawling across Optimus’ chest plating, scooted in beside Fixit, and started on the bottom aperture….

And then they were done. Kim fumbled for the vacuum’s off-switch. She was positioned awkwardly, her feet on Optimus’ chest armor, her knee resting against hisjaw plating, the gap of his neck mechanisms between.  She was trying to figure out how to climb off when Optimus’ unoccluded eye rippled and then illuminated. She froze in surprise

The helm vents roared to life. Normally only a smooth whisper, the fans made a horrible grinding noise now. She felt the shift in airflow—at least they were working—but it sounded awful.

And then Optimus moved.

With a yelp, Fixit slid off Optimus’ helm and crashed to the floor.  Kim scrambled to hang on.  There was nothing to grip but smooth armor, her foot slipped between his neck and shoulder—if he twisted and the plating came together—

A hand the size of a Thanksgiving platter swept past Kim’s head and pinned Optimus to the berth. Kim caught a glimpse Windblade in between trying to keep her grip on the vacuum and frantically get out of the way.

“Please, please, Sir. Please be still,” Windblade begged. She uncoiled a cable from a tiny hatch in her abdomen and connected to the port in Optimus’ wrist. “Please.”

For a moment, everything seemed frozen. Kim cowered on her elbows and knees, the vacuum clutched on one hand. She was on the transparent plating that doubled as a windshield. Her cheek was pressed to the ‘glass.’

Fuck.

On her left, Fixit was climbing back up the side of the berth.

“Ratchet?” Windblade called frantically. “I’m not sure I can hold him. There’s a lot of pain. He’s…He’s encoding memory at 8.7 times normal definition.”

“Slag it, Optimus, so help me, if I have to come over there....” Something—a wrench?—flew across the room and clanged against the berth with startling accuracy. “Power. Down. Now.”

The operational eye flickered and went dark.

Windblade quivered slightly.  “He has let me disconnect his actuators and peripherals. You can continue, Fixit.” 

Fixit nodded unsteadily. “Torso intake and exhaust: dorsal, two sets of lateral, ventral.” He leaned sideways to look down at Dan through the gaps in the berth supports. “The shopvac hose will not fit into the dorsal vents. Retrieve a scrub brush from the cabinet—gravity will assist you in clearing the obstruction.” He popped back up. “Kim, begin with the left lateral vents. The ‘Dustbuster’ head appears to be compatible with the ventral openings.”  

The grilles along Optimus’ sides were slightly larger than the ones in the front of his helm.  These had more sand in them, though, and the sand was _packed._ The Cold War vacuum whined and complained. Kim stuck a finger in beside the nozzle and wiggled. Sand crumbled free and disappeared into the vacuum hose.

It seemed to go very slowly. There was just so much sand, and it was deeply impacted, especially in the intake grille. And then she realized it wasn’t just sand—something light and crumbly, like old foam rubber. She caught a little between two fingers and held it up. “Fixit? What is this?” she called over the drone of the vacuums.

One of his antennae flicked in her direction. “A filter. I fear they are all ruined and must be removed.”

They kept vacuuming---sand and sand and sand and sometimes scraps of filter.

And then they were done. Kim switched off the vacuum and rocked back to sit on her heels.

“Windblade, please bring Prime’s main coolant system on line.”

Windblade, still connected by her thin cable, nodded. The fans spun up slowly, creaking and grinding. Kim gripped the vacuum hose and wished she knew if Primus was the sort of god you prayed to.

A shadow fell over them. Ratchet, looking—if it made any sense to think so—weary and worried. “Oh, old friend,” he said softly. “What has this pit-consigned planet done to you?” He sighed. “I will take over from here, Windblade. Go and help Chromia. Ironhide will have a long wait, I’m afraid.”

Kim glanced up. Across the cavern Ironhide was sitting on an active pallet. His mangled leg was stretched out in front of him. Chromia sat beside him, not touching, but at their usual distance.  There was something she was missing about them, obviously. 

She would not figure it out today.

Windblade disengaged her cable and Ratchet snapped the line from his own wrist into the vacated port. For a moment Ratchet was still, his optical arrays unfocused.

 _Oh, god,_ Kim thought. _Do something, Ratchet._

Optimus’ fans quieted. One of Ratchet’s servos folded into a set of wickedly-hooked pincers. Swiftly, firmly, Ratchet swiped the pincers through Optimus’ torso intake vents, ripping out the ruined filters one after another and discarding them on the floor. It took, perhaps, two minutes.

This time the fans made a soft wine instead of a loud grinding noise when they engaged. Surely that was better.

 _Oh, god. Oh, god_.

The wind coming out of the ex-vents was scorching hot.

Ratchet uncoupled and retracted his cable. “I will clear his optic. The rest of you will work on his joints.” He glanced pointedly at the two engineers and then Kim. “It is not necessary to remove every single grain of sand from his cavities. Self-repair systems can scavenge small amounts of silicon. Nevertheless, the more sand you remove, the more comfortable he will be. Kim, you have the better vacuum—you will begin at the neck junction. You two, begin with the peds.” He turned on his heel and went to the equipment cabinets.

Kim glanced at Pierre and Dan. They looked as freaked out as she felt. Swallowing hard, she got a good grip on her vacuum cleaner and made the short hike back up to Optimus’ head. Her choice was between crawling over his body or taking big steps from one berth support to the next. She chose the big steps.  The vacuum seemed very heavy—

_Oh._

Grimacing, Kim opened the chamber and dumped a couple quarts of sand onto the floor before continuing on her careful way.

A glimmer of pale blue light: Optimus’ undamaged optic was functioning.  Kim’s breath caught. Was he conscious? Was he able to move? Nervously, Kim glanced around. Ratchet was at a supply cupboard, assembling some kind of external tool. Drift was standing beside Jetstorm’s pallet, not touching him, but attentive.  Windblade and Chromia bracketed Ironhide. Standing guard? Moral support? Jazz and Bumblebee were down the tunnel, crouched to speak to one of the NEST soldiers.

No one to help just now.

“Okay,” Kim said. “Here’s the thing. Optimus?   I’m about to poke you with a pointy thing and if you move unpredictably, I might hurt you. Or you might kill me. You’ve gotta hold still. If you can hear me…just hold still. Okay?”

Kim untangled the power cord, unkinked the hose, and turned on the vacuum. “This has got to be horrible,” she said over the roar of the vacuum. “All that sand in everything. But it’ll go much faster now. It won’t take long at all, not with all of us working. You can hang in there, I know it. Everything is going to be fine.”

Although there was armor covering the tops of his shoulders, the neck and shoulder joints seemed almost open once you got past the outer plating: It was a maze of flexible supports, cables, hydraulic-looking _things_ , and silicon actuators. Every crevice was full of sand. Kim gently ran the nozzle along a curved bundle of cables. It pulled the sand out nicely. “So,” she said brightly, loudly. “That worked. You’re doing great.” The bottom of his helm was caked in sand. Kim kept cleaning, sand clattering up the hose. “You’re going to be fine. I know it’s bad, but just a little bit longer. It’ll all be over soon.”

She recognized Drift’s hand as it coiled around her waist and hoisted her up. Drift was always polite and reasonable, and Kim was startled instead of afraid until, holding her before his face, he shouted, “How dare you, organic? Have you no mercy?” and then panic blotted out every other sort of thought.

She was high above the floor, firmly held but with her feet dangling. The position alone was scarier than any carnival ride Kim had ever been on—but Drift’s open rage was worse. The only thing that kept her from screaming was immobilizing terror.

Drift had sprouted a shoulder cannon and his eyes seemed to blaze a deep blue. “He suffered this damage shielding your kind from the Decepticon!” Drift shouted. “We did not drive the enemy toward solid ground—only because it would have endangered humans. For their sake he was pulled into--”

Suddenly, Ratchet was there, yelling in aggrieved frustration, “I need that! Put it down, Drift! Immediately!”

Drift spun on him, rocking Kim dizzily. “Did you not hear what she said?” he demanded bitterly, “Prime is in agony. He may yet lose cognitive sectors. And this organic gleefully taunts him in his pain and helplessness!”

“I. Don’t. Care.” Ratchet held out his hand. He said nothing else—or, at least, nothing else aloud. Drift shivered, hesitated a moment, and passed Kim into Ratchet’s cupped hands.  Almost sullenly, he slunk back to his minicon’s pallet.

Kim clung to Ratchet’s warm servos and tried not to vomit.

“Are you injured?” Ratchet asked impatiently.

Kim couldn’t answer.

Ratchet sighed and manifested a directed sonar array. “Your endoskeleton appears to be whole and I am detecting no leakages. Are you able to return to work or not?”

“Drift--” she began.

“I do not have time for his nonsense. Slagging idiot! Interfering with _my_ infirmary!” He snorted indignantly. “Don’t worry about Drift. If he steps away from Jetstorm again for any reason, I’ll have him bridged to the artic for a three-day patrol.” He lowered his hand and Kim managed to let go and step onto a berth support.

Dimly, distantly, she realized that Optimus _was_ pale. Although a few of the less accessible areas were still vivid red or blue, most of his finish had been sandblasted. The gloss was gone, and most of the color.

She glanced at Drift, looming over Jetstorm’s smaller form. She looked away.

Her vacuum was jammed between two of the berth supports. Kim hauled it out and returned to work clearing neck cables. She didn’t speak now—she had no idea what terrible thing she had said. Was a Prime simply too important a person to be told to hold still? Or was Kim too unimportant a person to do it?

She vacuumed and vacuumed, tilting to look from different angles, trying to find every junction and crevice. There was always more sand.

As Kim was moving on to the left shoulder, two sergeants showed up with vacuums.  These were new models, sleek and futuristic-looking.  One was set to work clearing Optimus’ hands—or what would have been hands had they not been jammed mid-transition, choked with sand.  The other started work from beneath the berth.  Set high enough for Ratchet to work comfortably, there was clearance for a man to stand upright underneath.

The shoulder joint was complicated and well-enough protected by plating that she couldn’t easily reach all the crevices where sand was hiding. It was slow, frustrating work. And then she encountered a pocket where the sand stayed put when she ran the nozzle over it.  Frowning, Kim tested the suction, wondering if she needed to empty the canister again.

The suction was fine.

Kim reached in and poked the sand with her finger. It was damp. And…sticky? “Ratchet!” she shouted over the vacuum’s engine. “Ratchet!”

“What is it now?” But despite the annoyed tone appeared at once, leaning over her shoulder.

“Ratchet, there’s fluid, he’s leaking something.”

“Hmm.” Ratchet leaned down and angled a sensor from one of his servos into the sand-impacted cleft she pointed to. “Yes, you’re correct. That is lubricant. It won’t hurt you. You can safely remove the debris with your hands.” He started to turn away.

“But he’s leaking! You have to do something!”

Ratchet paused, glancing back. “He is leaking lubricant. It is a serious hazard leading to loss of joint efficiency and debilitating surface wear—if the joint is under use. As it stands, the patient has no motor capability and is sedated, so adequate lubrication is not a priority. If you are finished questioning my medical judgement, human, your silent _help_ would be welcome.”

Lubricant and sand combined to make a stiff, sticky mass that didn’t give way to Kim’s fingers any more than it had to the vacuum nozzle.  She was scraping at it with her fingernails when Fixit appeared, offering a stiff wire brush and a long-handled scoop reminiscent of a small iced tea spoon. He did _something_ , and a segment of armor folded away, making the clotting mass much easier to get to.

Digging with the scoop did not go much faster than finger nails. Kim reversed the tool and wiggled the flat end down the side, trying to pry out the mess. A substantial chunk broke free, and Fixit retrieved it and tossed it aside. “Disgusting,” he said.

Kim scraped at the remaining mess, at least revealing a tiny tube that dripped amber fluid.

“This is small. Self-repair should have taken care of it,” Fixit fussed. His small suction extension slurped up the drops of viscous liquid. He covered the leak with a tiny transparent patch that tightened over the wound and then wiped a thick coat of raw materials jell over the whole area.

There was more sand.  The other shoulder was, if anything, even worse than the first.  And here, some of the sand was damp with seawater.

Salt was corrosive.

Too tired now to properly panic about this new disaster, Kim fumbled in her pockets for the thin scoop Fixit had left her. Digging the wet sand out and sucking it up went faster than just trying to vacuum it straight out.

“What do we do about the salt?” Kim whispered to Fixit the next time he passed by.

He paused and looked up. His antennae were drooping.  “It will have to be flushed out. We must do this after the humans have cleared the area. The solvents we use are toxic to your species.”

She nearly had the second shoulder joint cleared when the vacuum died with a long, sad drone.  Kim checked the plug (fine) and emptied the container (nearly full), but it would not restart. Then her hand brushed the engine case and her heart plummeted. It had overheated.

How long would it take a magnificent Cold War vacuum cleaner to cool down enough to restart? “Do we--” She cleared her throat. “Do we have another vacuum? This one’s had it?”

Jazz, waiting silently with Captain Lennox on the other side of the yellow line, came over and collected the useless tool with one hand while holding out the other to Kim.

She did not want to be picked up, but the ground was six feet away and she felt too shaky to handle the climb.

Jazz carried her back and set her down beside Lennox. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was formal and flat, empty of his usual enthusiasm.

Lennox looked her over and handed her a half-empty bottle of water. Numbly, Kim drained it.

“How is he?” Lennox whispered.

Kim blinked at him. “What?”

“Prime. How is he? I just got out of debrief,” he said bitterly. “Mearing and the president are delighted with us by the way. Commendations for everybody. Come to find out, it’s all gone to hell down here.” He looked at the infirmary. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad.” Jazz said, his voice still oddly flat. “His coolant system shut down for a while, and that could have been dangerous. There was a lot of sand to clean up, and that’s…an elaborate process. It will be a few days before he’s cleared for duty, but Ratchet expects no permanent damage.”

Lennox folded his arms. “That’s what you said the first three times,” he hissed. “Dammit Jazz, it’s _me_. Never mind that I need to know! I’m his friend. I’m your friend. If it’s bad, you can trust me.”

Jazz sank to one knee and regarded Lennox silently for a moment. “I haven’t lied, Will.”

Lennox stepped closer, rising up on his toes to close a little more of the distance. “And everybody is freaked out because--?”

“He is…distressed.  Will, his cognitive systems and nerve inputs cannot be properly taken off-line until most of the heat have dissipated, and his coolant system is operating at forty percent efficiency.”

“He can’t turn off the pain,” Lennox whispered.

“It was all Ratchet could do to shut down motor functions. Because he cannot conceal his distress over an open radio contact, Prime is refusing to speak to us in anything but glyphs.”

“It’s been three hours!” Lennox said.

Kim’s eyes burned. “Is that why Drift…?” she closed her eyes and shook her head. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but sand, and her vacuum had broken, so she couldn’t do anything to help with that anymore.

“Drift,” Jazz sighed. “Drift doesn’t have the build for full symbiosis with his minicons. But they are still his students, have been for nearly twenty human years. Jetstorm’s injury…does not actually excuse his error in confusing _you_ with a Decepticon. At least, that is what I have been able to understand of the incident. Bulkhead keeps broadcasting images of items of furniture asking if it might be the enemy. I probably should put a stop to that before Drift’s distraction and embarrassment run out and he starts retaliating.”

Oh. Poor Drift. Kim’s eyes slid closed.

“Listen,” Jazz said, his voice softening slightly so that he sounded more like his old self. “The specifics of Prime’s condition are classified. No talking to your superiors or your subordinates, Will. I’m sorry. And, Kim. No notes.”

“No notes,” Kim agreed. Her bag was still on the couch upstairs. A tear dripped free and made a trail down her face. _Salt,_ she thought. _I’m leaking corrosives._

***

Kim retreated, somehow, to the balcony. She was curled into a ball on the couch when, a long time later, Arcee’s purple module appeared in front of her to explain that it was time to start flushing Optimus with solvents. “The humans have to clear out. Workplace hazard or something. I’m to send you into the back corridor and seal off the door for three hours.”

She woke up on her bed, still dressed and in her shoes. The clock said it was 9:35—she assumed morning. She was stiff, everything hurt, her hands were raw. She staggered up the stairs to the shower. Lacking a change of clothing, and unwilling to put the jeans and tee back on, she went back to her room naked. It didn’t matter. This part of the base was abandoned.

She ate canned tuna and crackers and went back to sleep.  

When she woke again it was nearly one o’clock. She downed two bottles of tea, threw on her shoes, and tried the door to the balcony.

It opened.

It was quiet in the old silo. Kim walked to the railing. From the corner, she could see enough of the infirmary to make out Strongarm powered-down on a berth and Ironhide on a pallet. The lower part of Ironhide’s leg had been removed, but he and Ratchet were calmly talking.

She could only see the tips of Optimus’ feet. They were pastel.

Kim tore her eyes away and went to the front.  It was only Bulkhead in the assembly area—he was seated at the satellite interface station. The screens she could see showed huge land masses and shifting clouds. A quiet day, then.

She started to retreat to the back hall again, but as she walked past the stairs, she noticed Bumblebee sitting at the bottom. It seemed awkward. He wasn’t the right shape at all, to sit on steps. The resulting sprawl might have been relaxed, but instead looked disheartened.

Kim considered for a moment before going down and sitting beside him. “Hey?” she said, digging out her phone.

Bumblebee chirped, but not enthusiastically. No text or glyphs came to her phone.

“Bee…Is everybody okay?”

He nodded.

“Ironhide? Optimus?”

His speaker chimed out “ _There’s a party goin’ on right here; a celebration to last throughout the year_.”

Without thinking, she gave him a happy, one-armed hug. He was cool and hard and angular and—most importantly—not socialized for hugging. Kim pulled back, feeling weird and awkward. Bumblebee didn’t seem to notice either the hug or her fumbled retreat. “Bee? You okay? You don’t seem exactly happy.”

A text (because no, pithy human media samples would not cover this): TIRED. I NEED TO DEFRAG SOME DRIVES. His voice trilled briefly. HOW ARE YOU DOING?

“Oh. Good. You know.” _Better than last night, which had been unspeakably horrible,_ but she wasn’t going to say that.

Kim set the phone down where she could see it and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I’d…I’d kind of like to know what I did wrong last night? The thing that made Drift so mad?” She had not realized that she was going to ask that, and as soon as the words were out she regretted them.  She did not, actually, want to know.

Bumblebee looked away. His text said: THIS IS SOMEWHAT COMPLICATED. WAIT.  He stood up, calling out to Bulkhead in Cybertronix. Bulkhead flashed Kim’s phone a humor glyph—and then an apology glyph.

“Hm.” He said, crossing to the steps and kneeling down for a serious conversation. “Yeah. Look.” He glanced away and shrugged. “Everybody’s seen the data file. Nobody thinks you actually meant it.”

Bumblebee nodded vigorously.

Kim’s heart sank. “Meant…what?”

“Well, you know how when you’re going at it with Decepticons, and one of them has you corned or, you know, down? Right, well… the thing is,” Bulkhead shifted uneasily.  Bumblebee had inched away from them both. “They say stuff. To get to you. A favorite goes, like, ‘this is going to hurt, but it won’t last long. I promise to kill you quickly.’ Um. Stuff like that.”

Kim’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t,” she gasped.

Bulkhead laughed unconvincingly. “Well. Obviously. I mean, you’re not a Decepticon. You aren’t even dangerous. Even if you knew anything about how Decepticons get, it isn’t like you’d mean it that way. Nobody thinks so.”

And everybody knew. Kim closed her eyes. “Oh, god.”

“It’s kind of funny,” he began. Bumblebee interrupted him with a brief whirl of chirps and clicks. “Well, no, not when you put it that way,” Bulkhead admitted.

“Is he angry?” Kim asked.

“Nah. Just kind of embarrassed about the whole thing. I mean, between bein’ wrong, interferin’ with Ratchet, threatenin’ an unarmed human, it’s kind of a—could you call this a trifecta of humiliating mistakes? Am I using that phrase right?”

If Kim had felt up to actually doing research she would have asked Bulkhead what he had against Drift, that he was enjoying his mistake so much.  And she would have asked what else Decepticons said to taunt their victims. And she would have thought of other things to ask, and kept him talking—

What she said was, “Is Optimus angry?”

Bulkhead shrugged. “More like disappointed. Drift is normally really reliable.”

“No—at me?”

“Why would Optimus be angry at you? It isn’t your fault Drift decided to be an idiot.”

This was somehow not reassuring. She had been trying to be helpful. She had done her best. _How unfortunate that my best turned out to be gloating and a death threat._

There was nothing she could do about it now. Kim thanked Bulkhead and Bumblebee and retreated back to her room. She didn’t want to talk to Autobots. She didn’t want to go face the humans in the cafeteria. Sorting through her accumulated notes seemed like a good enough excuse not to speak to anyone.

 

**Chapter 13**

_ Fieldnotes  _

__

> There are no doors.  It’s completely open plan. Since everything is so far apart, to a human, there is plenty of separation of activities and people. But for them, I don’t think there is any privacy. You almost never find a mech alone in a room. Even the infirmary is around a corner in a wide spot in the corridor. And given the mechanical constraints of re-purposing this base, I understand why there aren’t any mech-sized doors. Although I bet they could have some if they really wanted to, their engineering is amazing, just look at the active pallets. But what really stands out: none of the mecha seem to mind!
> 
> When do they do things that are private? Do they do things that are private?
> 
>  
> 
>  They keep sending Ratchet engineers—what he needs is nurses. Engineers work on things, not people. It has to be easier to teach a nurse mechanics than the other way around. That’s assuming Bill couldn’t find some already cross-trained. Who cares—even with the engineers and mechanics, Ratchet has to spend a huge amount of time UNteaching them human electronics! Better to start fresh.
> 
>  
> 
> I need talk to Cliffjumper about the English language pack—and find out just what it contains about nonverbal behavior. Not that I mind them being good at talking to humans. But I keep wondering if I am seeing anything of them.

 

 

>  know there is something in their proxemics. It’s too consistent to be random. If they were an affectionate species, I’d guess that they were keeping a careful distance in public  because they were self-conscious about certain kinds of touching in private. But they are not affectionate. And while Chromia is sort of reproductive, Ironhide is not at all.  And reproductive is not the same thing as sexual. (I think).
> 
> Maybe it is just really strict rules of conversational distance. Except it seems to vary by person? Optimus always sets the distance in whatever conversation he’s in—except for Ironhide and Ratchet, who will go right up to him.  Nobody else approaches within six feet of him, but I’ve seen him move closer.
> 
> Who else stands at a regular distance? I’ve seen Windblade stand next to Strongarm, Bumblebee, Chromia, and Ratchet. Jazz, Bee, and Cliff Jumper—It looks like they’ve stood next to everybody, but Cliffjumper doesn’t stand beside, he stands facing.
> 
> Almost everybody. Nobody stands near Fixit.
> 
> I need to spend a day just tracking their physical position. Or I could ask.  But I don’t know how to phrase the question. Scrap!!!
> 
>  
> 
> What do they mean by ‘sedation?’ How does that work when there is not one central nervous system running, but lots of independent subsystems. I suppose our brains have lots of independent subsystems, too, but since they all float in the same chemical bath AND we don’t really know how they work, we can’t isolate them and regulate them independently.
> 
> Note: look up what a hypothalamus does.
> 
>  
> 
> And how do medical override codes work? I wonder if it is a security breach to tell me.

 

>  
> 
> Maggie said Ratchet couldn’t make replacements for cognitive processors.  If the heat damaged his processors, Optimus

 

> Bill wants reports. On useful things to know about mecha. For people who work with mecha. Maybe I should ask the people who already work with mecha if they have any questions. Or maybe I should start with something interesting and fun.
> 
> Maybe I should ask my boss what he thinks should be in the reports, since he is supervising this project.
> 
> When he recovers.
> 
>  

 

>  
> 
> How does Cliffjumper get fruit and veggies while on patrol? Has he just sworn his partners to secrecy? Bill doesn’t know, I believe him. But lots of people could know. Is everybody in on it but the officers? Or what if he is really clever—of course he can order on the internet. And have it delivered anywhere. But even if I can find out how this works, I probably shouldn’t explain the mystery now. This may be one of these things I take my time to investigate.

 


	7. Part 7: Psychology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, profound thanks to Martha. Thanks for coming along on this particular ride.

**Chapter 14**

Kim woke to the sound of someone repeatedly rapping shave-and-a-haircut on her door. Not Bill or one of the NEST guys, then; this was someone who had learned about how Earth doors worked from mass media. Stiff and sleepy, she stumbled to the door and opened it.

Slipstream was on the other side. He was the right height for the hall, but so wide, he’d have to turn sideways to get through the door. “Um, hi,” Kim mumbled. She yawned so hard her ears cracked.

“I am pleased to see you,” Slipstream said. “We were beginning to worry.”

Kim blinked at him stupidly. “Why?”

“You were not answering your phone.”

 _Oh. Hell._ No, she had not plugged in her phone in days. Ratchet done something to the power supply. Even with all the use it got, it could go for three or four days without being plugged in. Kim hadn’t charged it since before— “What’s happened? Is everyone all right?”

“Everyone is fine.”

Kim was awake enough now to notice that she was failing as a hostess—and didn’t even know what to do when a mech informant visited. “Would you…like to come in?”

“No. I am here to establish your wellbeing and deliver a message. Prime wishes to see you.”

Kim glanced down. She was wearing yesterday’s jeans and tee shirt. No shoes. “When?”

“Twenty one point four minutes ago.”

She was starving. She had not brushed her teeth. Or her hair. “I need five more.”

Slipstream seemed to consider this very seriously. “I have been asked to tell you, attendance is not compulsory.” He sounded doubtful.

“No! I’ll come. I’ll come. I just—there are a couple of biological things. I overslept.” Had she? What time was it?

Slipstream nodded. “It is understood.” He began to turn away.

“Wait—how’s Jetstorm?”

“He is much improved, thank you.” He turned away.

Kim shoved her feet into sneakers without bothering with socks and took off running for the bathroom.

***

The infirmary was quiet. Ratchet was at a work station near the center of the room, working on what looked like Ironhide’s leg.  Strongarm was powered down on a berth. Jetstorm was on the shelf normally reserved for human students. He seemed to be talking to Ironhide, who was parked in his alt form.  Optimus was sitting up, the medical berth curved behind him to support his back.  His finish was still washed out and dull, in a few places streaked with shades of grey.

They would all be fine. The news was good. There was nothing to worry about.

As she reached the yellow line, Ratchet glanced up absently and waved her off. “No lesson today.”

“I sent for her, Ratchet,” Optimus said.

Ratchet froze for a moment, then turned around, folding his arms. “Oh, no. Absolutely not, Optimus. You are off duty. That means no working. That includes no ethnography.”

“Ratchet,” Optimus said with exaggerated patience.

“No.”

“It’s okay,” Kim called. “I’ll come back another time.”

“That is not necessary,” Optimus said firmly. Ratchet glared at him. Optimus glared back. It was likely they were having a conversation over the radio.

After several seconds, Optimus said, “There will be no research. We will refrain from asking one another questions.”

Ratchet snorted. “As though either one of you could manage that. No, no. I can’t wait to see this.” He rolled a mobile table into place before Optimus’ berth and lifted Kim onto it. It was high. Even sitting down, Optimus was a big mech. Kim sat down herself and scooted to the edge to put her feet over the side. It was like sitting on the edge of the balcony. Kim removed her bag and set it behind her, out of the way. No research.

Optimus was watching her. His eyes seemed to be fine. Kim could see no sign of damage to the left optical array. “Customarily, this is where I would ask you how you’re doing,” she said. “That’s a question, though. So, I’ll say I’m pleased to see you looking so much better.”

Optimus tilted his head back slightly in surprise. “You believe I look better.” It sounded like a question.

Ratchet laughed softly. Kim ignored him. “Yeah,” she said gently. “You’re sitting up and talking. You aren’t making any horrible extra noises. Your face isn’t covered by a _thing_ , and your eyes… yeah, it’s…a whole lot better.” 

“Ah. I understand.”

Kim doubted that.

“But what was the thing on my face?” he asked.

“Uh-uh-uh,” said Ratchet, not turning his attention from his work.

Optimus gave Ratchet a long look. “I was not asking _her_.”

Kim winced. Optimus was not turning out to be a cooperative patient, and Ratchet was kind of an asshole. How had they been doing this for literally centuries and not killed each other?

Ratchet sighed. “Your battle mask was jammed and would not retract.”

“I see. Kim, I regret that you were so poorly prepared. The timing was unfortunate. I am personally very grateful that you did not let your confusion and distress prevent you from helping me. Thank you.”

Scrap. Okay, so they were doing this now. Kim gripped the edge of the table tightly and took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry for screwing it up so badly. I didn’t intend to say anything cruel--” No. She could not give him an apology full of excuses. She must not minimize this. “It turns out I--” No, that wasn’t right. “I taunted you and threatened you. You should not have had to hear that. Please believe that I am so sorry.”

He answered in a hard voice. “I was unaware that you had said anything ‘cruel.’”

“Were you--” She glanced at Ratchet and asked anyway, “Were you unconscious?” She felt a stirring of hope: if he hadn’t heard her, she could not have added to his distress.

“I was not. My memories of Tuesday evening are complete, vivid, and time-stamped in increments of one-eleventh of a second.”  He looked at Ratchet and Ratchet stopped working.  Even if their conversation had been on an open channel, Kim could not have followed it; her phone was charging in her room. She had to wait. She tried to do it without fidgeting. Finally, he said aloud, “At no point were you unkind.  I distinctly remember you attempting to offer encouragement and expressing faith in my strength—while risking your life on the trust that I would not move unpredictably and crush you.”

“Hey!” Ratchet said grumpily, “I had you sedated by then. Your actuators were disengaged.” He looked at Kim. “He couldn’t have moved.”

“She did not know that,” Optimus shot back. He sounded more angry than impatient now. “Drift was instructed to apologize for his accusation.”

Ratchet made a dismissive noise. “Kim has spent most of the last day hiding in the back corridor. Drift is currently meditating on the Mesa.”

“Yeah, I’ve been kind of avoiding him….” Kim confessed.

“I see. Very well.” Stiffly, he resettled himself on the berth.  In the quiet Kim could hear that his fans were still whining little. Thinking that perhaps he needed a moment, Kim looked down at the distant floor.

It was a long minute before Optimus spoke. “I must now ask you a favor. Drift’s accusation against you was very serious. The affront he offered was not trivial, and it would not be unreasonable for you to hold it against him. In his defense, I can only offer that he was running several conflicting subroutines at the time.  I ask that you pursue the issue no further.”

Kim had opened her mouth to say that obviously Drift’s mistake had not been worse than her own, possibly to add that Drift had been punished more than enough with Bulkhead’s bad jokes, when the strange wording of the request made her pause.

Something was odd here.

“Was that an official request? Are you asking me as Prime?”

Optimus hesitated.  “Answer that,” Ratchet drawled. “This is riveting.”

“Yes, I am asking as Prime.”

How did this work? “What happens if I say no?”

“If you say no, it will be a personal rejection of my authority as Prime and a general insult to our society,” he answered softly.

“Huh,” Kim said. “You knew you didn’t have to force me, right? I mean, all you had to do was hint that you wanted it. Or advise me that making up with Drift was a good idea. You _knew_ that, right?”

“Yes. I did.” He glanced at Ratchet.

“Oh, no,” Ratchet said, chuckling. “You got yourself into this.”

“It was not my intention to compel compliance. It is often less embarrassing to end a conflict when an authority requests peace. There is no loss of status when concessions can be blamed on respect for my position.”

Ratchet laughed smugly. “You’ve caught him. He’s been quelling feuds this way for _vorns_.”

“It’s a face-saving mechanism,” Kim said.

Optimus paused. “Goffman. Yes.” He seemed to sag slightly “Kim, if you and Drift do not settle this you will lose access to his students as well. Your research population is very small. You cannot afford to alienate twenty percent of it by allowing this conflict to escalate.”

“You are absolutely right.”

“It was not my intention to infringe on your freedom of choice. I withdraw the request.”

“Heck no! You just—you treated me like one of the—the tribe. I’ll take it.”

Ratchet chuckled. “Do you see now why I loathe working with them?” He set down the leg assembly and went around to the far side of Optimus’ berth.

“Ratchet.” A warning tone. “Your humor is in poor taste.”

Kim knew damn well that Ratchet hadn’t been kidding, but she kept that to herself. “Am I tiring you out, Optimus?” Kim asked. “Should I go?”

It was Ratchet who answered. “Not just yet, I think,” he said, placing a gentle hand on Optimus’ chest plating. “Since you’re here, there is one more thing you must discuss.”

Kim gaped.  She had never seen physical affection between mecha. She had been explicitly told more than once that physical affection wasn’t a thing. And here was Ratchet just—what? Was this a comforting gesture? A possessive gesture? A protective gesture?

Then Kim saw that two of his servo tips had manifested sensors. This touch wasn’t sentimental, it was medical.

“You still believe it is necessary?” Optimus asked.

“I am still certain it is necessary.” Briskly, Ratchet released his patient and returned to his repair station.

Optimus sighed—not a vocal sigh, but a whine from his damaged fans. “My chromeonanite network is unsalvageable. Ratchet will have to strip off the remains of my ‘paint job’ and replace the entire system.”

“Oh,” Kim said. Her hands were sweating, making a slick spot along the table edge. “Will it…hurt?”

“No. The process is tedious, not painful.” He glanced at Ratchet, who replied with a quiet, irritable grunt. “The damaged sheathing will be deactivated and then scrubbed off. A coating of untuned nanites will be applied. It will take a couple of days for the new system to bond with my mesh and form a network.”

“Oh. Is it dangerous?”

“No.”

“That’s good.”  He was watching her closely. The lenses in his optical arrays changed focus every few seconds. “What am I missing?”

“While the nanites are settling, they will be inactive.”

“So….you won’t have any sort of paint job?” Was this vanity? Was this solemn conversation because he was dreading being ugly? Or was having no functioning nanites like being naked?

Optimus tapped a wide, dark swath on his lower arm. “Inactive nanites are this color,” he said gently. He leaned forward stiffly and offered the arm for a closer look. Kim reached out a finger to touch the discolored armor, but Ratchet stuck a hand between them.

“Uh-uh-uh! No touching. We haven’t cleaned off all the jell. That stuff’s not compatible with humans.”

Kim nodded and withdrew her hand. “Right. Grey, then.” Vanity. Kim resisted the urge to smile. “Well. The red and blue was glorious, but I’m sure you’ll look fine grey, too.”

Optimus’ head snapped back so hard it clanged against the berth support.

Ratchet shook his head disgustedly. “She doesn’t _know_ , Optimus. She has never seen one of us dead.”

“What—wait? Dead? You turn grey when you’re dead?” Still visibly thrown, Optimus nodded. “You’re going to spend a couple of days looking _dead_?”

“Yes. I’m afraid there is no way to avoid it. The process cannot be speeded up. In order to spare the others distress, I will withdraw from contact until the process is finished. We are widening a side-tunnel behind the garage into a privacy annex. It is an adequate solution.”

Deliberately, Kim rocked back slightly and lifted her chin. “The Autobots are creating a room to hide you away in…because of your appearance?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re being placed in seclusion?” she asked. She felt an unaccountable—and completely inexcusable—anger rising.

“I am—one moment.” The research pause lasted several seconds. “Not in the way you mean. I am neither tapu nor ritually unclean. I am withdrawing from contact so that my friends and comrades are not forced to face a painful reminder of my mortality.”

“So, this is a normal thing?”

“Again, no. The close quarters of this military base present unusual problems.”

“Oh. And…you’ll be all right?”

He leaned forward slightly. “Why do you fear I would not be?”

“You’re a social people. Like us. Isolation….” She shrugged. Clearly, she was misunderstanding a lot. “We’d get lonely.”

“My separation will only be physical. The annex will be wired for wifi. I will not be alone.”

“Okay.” Kim took a deep breath. “Okay, that’s good. I won’t worry. I’m glad you explained.”

“If you will not be distressed by my appearance, we would be able to resume our daily interview appointment.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I have a lot of questions.”

“Hmf. And you are not asking any more of them today. You have taxed my patient enough.” Ratchet pointed firmly at the floor, and Kim collected her bag. Instead of offering to lift her off the table, he jacked into Optimus’ wrist port. Kim put the bag crossways over her body and climbed down the table’s ladder.

She wasn’t very fast. By the time she got down, Ratchet had finished with Optimus and was waiting by the yellow line. “A word, if you have a moment,” he said.

Kim glanced back at Optimus. The berth was flat, and his eyes were dark. “You sedated him?”

“No. He is merely in a defrag and repair cycle—not entirely voluntarily, I admit. Come with me.”

He entered the tunnel that led to ground bridge and, eventually, human country.  He stopped in the first shallow curve, out of direct line of sight to anyone else.  He sighed. “I see no way to avoid this conversation. It is sensitive information. I would ask you not to share it.”

He did not sit down or crouch to minimize the height difference. Kim wondered if that was a bad sign, or if just a reflection of Ratchet’s usual disinterest in humans. “Yes, right. No records. I won’t repeat it.”

Ratchet nodded. “As I understand it, physical contact is a fundamental form of interaction, essential not only for communication, but for optimal development and health for humans.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I realize it is a large concession to make, but I must ask you: please refrain from touching Prime for now.”

Heart sinking, Kim glanced in the direction of the infirmary. Ratchet had prevented her from touching the patch of dead nanites on Optimus’ arm. “This isn’t because of materials jell.”

“No. Will you comply?”

“Of course.  Ratchet--” _I wouldn’t hurt him._

_Scrap. What’s gone wrong now?_

“Frame your question,” Ratchet prompted. He sounded slightly less impatient than usual.

“No questions,” Kim whispered.

“You are not curious?”

“Of course I want to know. Of course I do. But you are his doctor and this is obviously a medical issue and he has a right to privacy--” Kim broke off swallowing hard. “Will he—will he be okay? Bumblebee said everyone would be fine.”

“Medical privacy. What a bizarre notion. Humans are a cypher.”

 _Scrap_. Kim steeled herself for one of Ratchet’s critiques of her species. This time, though, that wasn’t the direction he chose. “In fact, since you will be visiting during his convalescence, it is necessary that you understand the situation. What do you remember about our long-term memory?”

“Quartz,” Kim said. “It is very dense and doesn’t degrade.”

“How does crystal memory react with heat?”

“Um, badly?” Kim guessed. Everything else was vulnerable to heat.

Ratchet sagged slightly, resting his back against the tunnel wall. “No. Short term memory, processors, and busses are vulnerable to high temperatures. Core memory becomes more efficient.”

“Oh.” This was mystifying. More efficiency was usually a good thing.

“Optimus was not thinking…clearly in the aftermath of the battle. When his buffer shut down, he began writing directly to long term memory, coding events in unusually vivid and emotionally colored detail.”

Kim nodded to show she was paying attention. She could not claim to understand.

“Those memories will be marked by pain, helplessness, and the frightening sensation of small aliens crawling on his body and poking his vents and joints with crude tools.”

“Stop,” Kim said. “No. It can’t—” For a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Are you describing _trauma_? Are you saying we traumatized him?”

“Really, why must you always look for a human analogy in completely unrelated…Well. In fact, yes. The analogy is quite apt. It would be fair to describe Prime as traumatized. We would say he is badly memory glitching. The results appear to be similar.”

Kim felt ill. “So I can’t touch him because….” _Shit_.

“Because the sensation would likely be similar to the events recorded, and that could stimulate unpleasant memories.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean to hurt him!”

“Of course not,” Ratchet said dismissively. “But the damage is done, and it will be several days at least before he can redact the problem.”

“Oh, god. That’s--Wait, what do you mean, redact the problem. His permanent memory has….” _His permanent memory has me shoving a pointy thing into his body while he was helpless and in pain._

“A very large corrupt file,” Ratchet finished somberly. “In anyone else it would take at least two _orns_ \--and maybe three--to correct the problem. He will have to recopy the memory in question at a much lower resolution. Then, he will have to isolate all of the directory markers leading to the original file. The more links to subsequent events, the more difficult that will be. Fortunately, he is very good with memory. I expect it to take no more than an _orn.”_

“He’s going to edit his memories?”

“No. Quartz files cannot be erased or modified. He will have to make the original record inaccessible.”

“And he can…just do that? Won’t it still be lurking in his subconscious?”

“Subconscious. What a ludicrous idea. No.”

“Oh.”

“Until the process is finished, it would best if you did not touch him.”

Kim closed her eyes. “Thank you, Ratchet. No, I won’t touch him.” 

It was a long walk back to her room. Kim managed it without speaking to anyone. She shut the balcony door. She shut her bedroom door.

It wasn’t enough. She wasn’t far enough away from how awful everything was.

She had hurt him. So, so much worse than she had thought. What Drift had accused her of was a joke compared to this.

The guilt was overwhelming. She had hurt him.

She had…been involved in an adverse event. Could she think of it that way? She had been trained for that terrible possibility. An adverse event, and an informant was hurt.

But no. She had no research plan with procedures for this. She had no human subjects review board to report to. Or confess to.

No superior to confess to either. Who would she approach? Bill? That would be an unforgivable violation of Autobot secrets and the Prime’s medical privacy.

Her boss, then? That was Optimus. He already knew about it. And if he’d wanted to talk to her about it _he_ would have said something.

He had acted as though everything were fine between them, as though she were not a figure haunting his nightmares. And maybe everything was fine. Maybe this wasn’t a huge deal. He was thousands of years old—this could not be the worst thing that had happened to him.

That did not make her feel any better at all.

She booted up the computer that connected to the internet and looked up post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a military base. Probably a lot of people looked that up. And it was similar, Ratchet had said. There might be something….

It took less than twenty minutes to realize there was not. Huge amounts were written about combat as a cause. That did her no good; the memory malfunction didn’t start until after the battle was over.  Likewise, patterns seen in crime victims would not apply. Or assault. Or rape, if rape was even a concept that could translate to a mech context….

Kim cussed quietly to herself for a couple of minutes.

The precipitating event here was a medical procedure. That search paid off with a dozen useful-looking links, and Kim could see how that could be a thing. Two years before she had gotten a root canal—a stranger’s hands in her mouth for a couple of hours, pricks of pain, endless vibration.  She had been miserable and shaken for three days. And hadn’t the pill they’d given her actually interfered with memory formation? What if she had remembered it all _in detail_?

Oh. Hey. About a hundred  patients woke up during surgery every day.  She had to keep that research path as brief as the others, though. Internet use was not private.

_Oh, Optimus. I’m so sorry. If I’d known—_

If she’d known, she’d have what? _Not_ helped clear the sand?

The memory of what she had done to him was so unendurable it had to be lost. But, no, it was the way the memories had been recorded that was the problem. When it was over he would still have a record of _what_ had happened. This wasn’t repression, not in the human sense.

Kim shut off the computer. Thinking about this like a human would only cause problems. This wasn’t a human problem and the solution was not a human solution. And maybe the only proportionate response was to be slightly envious that she could not forget dangling twenty feet in the air from Drift’s claw.

Or the rattle and hiss of sand in the vacuum hose.

Or the horrible whine of straining fans.

***

She forced herself to put water and snacks in her bag, collect her newly-charged phone, and go back onto the balcony. She had a job to do.

Bumblebee was sitting on the steps again. Did his wings look droopy?

Kim plopped down beside him. “Hey, Bee. What’s up?”

He shrugged.

How many days had it been since he had been to town? “I really need a haircut,” Kim said. She didn’t. Unsure of the facilities where she was going, she had it shorn down to ear-length before heading to Nevada. “I just don’t have time for elaborate styling. I’m thinking maybe a pixie cut. Or—how would I look in a buzz cut?”

He turned to look at her doubtfully. Her phone beeped. It had classic picture by Norman Rockwell. –-HUMANS ARE DISCOURAGED FROM CUTTING THEIR OWN HAIR— a text said. :I WILL DO IT FOR YOU IF YOU WISH.

Curiosity – What would happen if she took him up on it?—nearly derailed her plan. “No, I was thinking you might take me to a stylist in town.”

 He perked up immediately—and then gave Kim what might have been a guilty look.

Kim smiled blandly. “Is now a good time?”

***

Before lunchtime on a weekday turned out to be a great time to get your hair done. She was done in twenty minutes, not the hour she’d told Bumblebee to ‘kill.’  There was a shoe store across the street. Shoes were another thing she didn’t need, but the store was cool and for the first time she had disposable income.

When her ride returned she was paying for a pair of bling-y sandals.

Bumblebee played “ _I’m too sexy_ ” as he opened the door.  Kim hid her grimace; her hair was so short now her head looked like a grape. Well. It would be easier to take care of. “Have a nice drive, Bee?”

The door shut itself with a quiet _thump_. Bumblebee’s air conditioner seemed to grow colder, although the interior was already pleasantly cool. :I have a friend in town, Kim.

 _Scrap._ “You don’t have to tell me. I can’t tell secrets I don’t know.”

:Everyone already knows. It is against the rules, but Optimus [glyph for _EXPERIMENT_ ] Does not disapprove.

“You keep getting in trouble for seeing him?” Another thought occurred to her. “A _human_ friend?” Because she couldn’t take anything for granted.

:FOR GETTING CAUGHT. And then :HUMAN

“Shit, Bee.”

The answer was a sad trombone noise.

She got the whole story over lunch (the drive-thru at the Knock Out Burger). Bumblebee had been parking across from a dog park to watch the humans interact with their symbiont species.  One day, a kid walked over from  a porch up the street, held out a phone showing a conspiracy theory website about aliens and said solemnly, “That’s about you, isn’t it?”

The leadership at NEST were under the impression that Bumblebee was naive and lonely and had watched an awful lot of science fiction. Kim wasn’t buying it. He wanted to know what kind of people these humans were, and there was only so much you could get from official government contacts and mass media. 

Was there a future for their people here, on Earth? Was it the right thing, to place their faith in humans?

And maybe Bee _had_ been watching too much science fiction, because since the boy had found him and not the other way around, it wasn’t technically breaking the rules (it totally was), so he went ahead and made friends with him (shit, Bee!).

That had been about six months ago.

Bumblebee seemed to have gotten attached. Now that school was out (the boy had skipped two grades, Bee was very proud), the boy was lonely. Small for his age, too smart, too geeky, he was often made fun of by the children in his neighborhood.  Bee was worried. And angry. And conflicted about humanity, which contained both a reasonable, compassionate little boy _and_ his cruel, shortsighted enemies.

“Give me a minute,” Kim said. Her intuition was creeped out. Grown-ups weren’t supposed to have secret friendships with children. But even as the thought took form, she could see it was stupid. Bee wasn’t human, he wasn’t even male. His interest in humans wasn’t sexual.

Yes, there was, sort of, an ulterior motive; he was checking to see if humans, as a species, were trustworthy allies.  (Oh, shit, by the way—let’s hope the kid showed humans in a good light!) But it wasn’t immoral and this kid wasn’t any more in danger than anyone else on the planet.

And wasn’t that a lovely thought? Because the Decepticons were still here and could change their strategy and start slaughtering humans at any time….

That was only the worst case scenario, though. Kim had to hope that….Well, in a few years the kid would graduate high school, able to write his own ticket as an expert on giant, alien mechanical life….

Kim closed her eyes. “What do you want from me, Bee?”

He played a few bars of “Should I stay or should I go?”

“My advice?” Kim sighed. “He’s not being hit, is he? By the other kids?”

:NO said her phone.

“I assume you know the symptoms of depression in kids better than I do?”

:HE IS NOT DEPRESSED. FRUSTRATED AND ANGRY.

“Any chance you’re making his problems worse?”

:I HAVE CONSIDERED THAT. I DO NOT SEE HOW.                                 

She sighed again. “Sometimes childhood just sucks. And other kids…It takes a long time for humans to learn how to act, to have self control, to feel safe enough in the world to stop attacking others preemptively.”

He blared the chorus of something angsty and emo. Kim wondered if that was agreement or resentment.

“He’s got your phone number, right?”

Bumblebee made a low-pitched, unhappy sound.

“Yeah,” Kim agreed.

***

On the way back to the mesa, Bumblebee pulled into a drug-store parking lot. I’D LIKE TO ASK FOR A FAVOR.

“Sure. What can I do?”

I NEED A PERSONAL SHOPPER.  I WANT FOUR GET-WELL CARDS. I COULD USE THE DRIVE THRU, BUT THEN I COULDN’T PICK THM OUT.

Kim looked at the storefront. She looked around the Volkswagen interior—was there a video pick-up here? “Is that a thing you guys do? Autobots?”

He wiggled slightly on his shock absorbers. NO. BUT IRONHIDE HAS BEEN TEASING ME ABOUT GOING NATIVE.

“So you’re going to get him a get-well card.”

FUNNIEST THING EVER.

“Oh. Should I get get-well cards for everyone, too?”

WHY? IT WON’T BE FUNNY IF YOU DO IT.

“Not to be funny, Bee. To be get-well cards.”

There was a long pause before the next answer appeared on her phone. WHY?

“Right, then.”

With the phone, she showed him the greeting card display.  Most of them were funny, but Bee wasn’t interested in those.  He selected four that were somber and sentimental, the sort of thing you’d offer an elderly person who was dying, except you wouldn’t, actually, because _ew_. They were awful. One was religious. One was in Spanish. One had puppies on the front.  One had (Kim was pretty sure) an actual sonnet on the inside.

On the way home she put the cards in envelopes—not sealed, or it would take a surgical tool to open them. Following Bee’s instructions, she labeled them and set them in the glove box.

***

Drift was waiting when they came out of the tunnel into the assembly area.

 _Scrap._ “Better let me out, Bee.”

 She would have liked to watch Bee pass out his get-well cards, but this was more urgent. She’d been putting this off.  It couldn’t be put off forever. Kim squared her shoulders and waited till Bumblebee had driven off before approaching Drift.

He descended onto one knee and tripoded on the knuckles of one hand so that he could lean down into her eye line. “Allow me to convey my earnest apologies for my accusation and my behavior.”

She really should have asked someone to coach her on this. Scrap. In modern America, it was often considered rude to just accept an apology. It was customary to minimize the incident or find something to apologize back about.  Mutual apologizing was a gender thing, she knew, but it was also a mechanism to minimize the unbalanced vulnerability of a serious apology. And, fairly, in most conflicts one side was rarely completely in the wrong and the other was rarely completely virtuous and in the right.

But what could she apologize to Drift for that wasn’t so absurd it would be mocking him? His pride surely didn’t need to be reminded that he’d accused a civilian human of threatening to murder the most powerful creature on the planet with a vacuum cleaner. “I apologize for my ignorance. I hope we can put this behind us. No hard feelings?”

He lowered his chin slightly. “No hard feelings,” he intoned.

To her relief, he rose gracefully and left.

~TBC


	8. Part 8: Discourse

**Chapter 15**

Maggie sent a text suggesting dinner at the cafeteria.  Kim went. She had to talk to humans sometime. She’d thought there would be questions, but she’d forgotten Fixit’s tendency to gossip. Maggie knew about everything on the mech side, including the meme Bulkhead had emailed around asking if a box of tissues was a Decepticon.

“Drift apologized. It’s done,” Kim said.  

Maggie made a face. “He’s had his situational awareness subroutines assessed by Ironhide.”

What? “Seriously?”

“Fixit was all shades of freaked out.”

Fixit hadn’t joined them. Kim hadn’t had a chance to speak to him since Tuesday night. “He was really kind.”

Maggie was quiet for a moment. “He was scared. It’s…been a while, you know. Since we had a Decepticon contact.”

“What are people saying?”

Maggie shrugged. “One Decepticon hiding on a Third World island with low population? Might not be ominous.”

“Hmm,” Kim said.

“Yeah. That’s probably wishful thinking.”

***

She had been psyching herself up for this all day: Whatever Optimus looked like, she must ignore it, and smoothly. There was no compliment that could gloss over looking literally dead. So. No staring, no sympathy, no questions.

When she arrived annex, promptly at 5:28 with her bag and folding chair, she found Optimus in his alt form and the new annex so dim she couldn’t have made out his color anyway.

She was deciding not to comment on the implications of sitting in the dark when she remembered that his alt form sensors leaned heavily on infra-red.  She could not guess how bright this long, narrow room—newly hewn from stone, even, so warm--was to him. “Afternoon,” she said, stopping about three yards in front of the shadowed Freightliner and resting the folding chair on her foot.

“Are you certain?” he asked. His voice was not loud, but it echoed slightly off the close, stone walls.

“Pretty sure; it’s a weekday and I’m still working.”

“Ah. You suggest time of day is determined by activity?”

“Up to a point: if it’s after seven, it’s evening no matter what.”

“When does it become night?” He sounded the same, Kim thought.  He sounded fine.

Kim shrugged. “You only say ‘good night’ when you don’t expect to see someone again until morning.”

“Hm. There is considerable ambivalence in human cultures about sleep.”

Ambivalence about sleep. Yes, put words to it and it was obvious. Kim leaned into the truth of that casual observation.  Culture patterns that _she_ took for granted, _he_ effortlessly identified and unpacked. His questions and reflections on human culture had been a regular part of their daily interview. It had only been a few days, but she had missed it. “We aren’t aware of our surroundings when we’re asleep. And we give up a lot of control of our bodies. And. We dream. Sometimes it’s weird or frighteningly.”

“Mecha do not dream. Sometimes we flag a file while defragmenting a drive or clearing a cache. From what I have read, it is not the same.”

Kim glanced around, wondering where to set up her chair.   It was too dark in the new annex to take notes.  She might have to just record.

His driver’s side door opened with a soft click. An invitation.

Kim swallowed. “Is it…are you sure it’s okay?”

“My nanites are not dangerous to organic life,” he said gently.

It had not occurred to her that they would be—probably she didn’t worry enough. On the other hand, she worried plenty about the problems she already knew about. “Right, but.” She took an uneasy step forward. “It’s okay if I….”

“Kim? I promise you are safe.”  The door opened slightly wider.

He was seeing her reluctance as distrust. Swallowing hard, she rested the folded chair against the tunnel wall and stepped forward. _He is thousands of years old._ _If he thinks this is fine, he is probably right_. But her mouth was dry as she stepped between his open door and the wall.

It was two big steps up into the cab—a choice between doing it fast and using momentum or going more slowly but using the handhold. Which might be more startling?  No, she couldn’t leap at him. She reached up, gripped the handle, and heaved herself in. The door clicked shut behind her.

Damn.

She only hesitated a moment before sinking down to sit on the edge of the seat. Her hands were in fists. _Small aliens crawling on his body and poking his vents and joints with crude tools_. 

“Chromeonanites are larger than human cells.  They are only active when physically linked to other nanites _and_ to a mesh structure. Unconnected, they quickly collapse into component elements.”

 _Shit. He thinks I’m scared of his new paint._ Kim swallowed. “It’s cool,” she said.  “I’m not worried.”

“Kim.” A pause, long enough for her to remember that they thought faster than she did and could multitask, so when a mech paused noticeably, they were doing some serious thinking. “In your culture, transparent lies are a face saving strategy.  In mine, an easily verifiable falsehood is disrespectful.”

She’d have to remember to write that down. “I’m sorry.” The cabin was chilly, she realized. His air conditioner was on.

“I see. If you would be more comfortable, you may sit on the folding chair.” Softly, the door clicked open.

Kim leaned slightly to the side and looked for the chair. It was lost in shadow. Just get out and let him think she was afraid of him?  She closed her eyes. “It’s not me. It’s you.”

“Your meaning is unclear.”

“Ratchet told me,” she whispered. “About the memory…problem. About having…issues with humans touching you.”

“I see. A moment.” There was a short silence.  Kim knotted her hands together and sat very still in the dim, chilly cab. After a moment he said, “Ratchet has shared the discussion in question. I agree, your metaphor was apt.”

Kim hugged her upper arms and let out the breath she was holding. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the right thing to do is here.”

“Your concern for my wellbeing is appreciated. However, I would suggest that there are a number of factors that you and Ratchet have overlooked.”

“Oh?” she asked faintly.

He seemed to settle slightly on his shock absorbers.  “To begin with, being damaged and reliant on human labor for repairs is Ratchet’s particular nightmare, not mine.”

“Oh!” Kim laughed once, miserably. “Yeah. God, poor Ratchet.”  

“You should also understand that while I was not thinking very clearly, I was able to correctly identify the danger as the debris choking my cooling system, not the friends and comrades working to clear it.”

Kim winced, but did not contradict him. She didn’t need to say it aloud, though; he was watching through an infrared camera. “You disagree?”

“You pushed away Windblade. When she tried to help.”

“Windblade has very little training in medical interface, and I was not in full control of my firewalls. I was concerned she would be hurt. But I did not think she was a threat to me.”

“Oh.”

“Finally,” he added thoughtfully, “you surely realize I have wagered the future of my people on the courage and compassion of your species. When I was helpless and in desperate need, our human comrades rose to the occasion. That is…reassuring.”

“Oh. So.” Kim suppressed a shiver. “You’re really—you’re not bothered by my being here.”

“No. On the contrary, I was concerned that you might feel unsafe. I was unable to prevent Drift from bodily removing you. He took you from my person. It should have been unthinkable, to interfere with you, while you were performing a vital service to me. He violated protocol.  He mistreated an ally. He threatened violence against someone who had placed her safety in our hands and --I could do nothing to stop him.”

The air conditioner was blasting now, freezing air shooting from every vent. The duct on the left was whining slightly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kim protested. “Drift was just upset.”

“Correct. It was not my fault, only my weakness.” The air conditioner abruptly shut off.

“Are you okay?” Kim asked.

“I am having some difficulty transcribing a few of the files.” The admission was quiet.

“I’m so sorry. Um, the sympathy sorry, not the regret sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“I…is there anything I can do to help?”

He made a surprised, staticky noise that might have been a laugh. “You are not equipped to help with code. But it is a kind thought.”

Kim leaned back against the seat. The cushion felt  chilly. “I’d offer a hug, but you’re my boss, so sort of inappropriate. And you’re not an ape anyway, so….”

“We often offer moral support through glyphs,” he said.

“Oh!” Kim took off her bag, set it on the seat, and retrieved the tablet she’d bought for glyph work. “Will you show me which ones?”

Nine glyphs for encouragement, five of them so specialized or intimate it was unlikely she would ever use them. He highlighted one and tweaked the translation to add implications of victory. “This is the one you are most likely to use.”

Kim felt a stab of guilt. She wasn’t a linguist. She knew linguists who would sell their souls for this opportunity. It was surely wasted on her.

“There is only one glyph for ‘reassurance’ but it is almost never used unironically. Instead—” the lesson continued. Often, needing to highlight specific symbols for later, Kim used her phone to take pictures of the tablet screen.

“Sometimes comfort is offered with a context-specific message.” A new glyph appeared by itself on the screen. “This is a ‘time-ping.’ It is a request for a chronometer confirmation. Ah. There is an English phrase: ‘Let’s synchronize our watches.’”

“Except your timing is internal—oh.  I would be asking agreement about the analog time of day.”

“Correct. This query would not be significant to anyone else.”

The cab was getting cold again—the temperature was dropping even faster this time. “Hey?” Kim said softly. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Kim winced inwardly, but didn’t comment.  Informants had a right to lie. She tried to form another question about glyphs, but it was really, _really_ cold, and she couldn’t stop herself from uncomfortable guesses as to why. “Maybe I should go.” _Yes, go_. _And call Ratchet._ _Optimus isn’t coping, and I can’t help him._

“Why do you ask?”

“Well…your coolant system—” Kim’s breath was actually fogging now. She opened her contacts list to look for Ratchet’s name.

The vents shut off with a sharp click. “I apologize. I was not paying attention to cabin temperature. Are you injured?”

“Fine.” She hardened her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter. “Well within my species’ operational tolerances.”  She patted the door firmly to make the point she was unafraid of touching him. “Do we need Ratchet?”

“He would tell me to summarize the sectors in question and be done with it.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“It would be disrespectful, after the extensive effort you expended on my behalf, to reduce my memory of those events to a text summary.”

“Oh. So. Um. It’s my fault you’re still…glitching.”

“Perhaps you don’t understand,” he began carefully.

“I would totally take a summary file of Tuesday night. The details of what lubricant feels like when it mixes with sand and turns to concrete? I don’t need that.” Or the sound of floods of sand rattling up a vacuum cleaner hose.

“And that is another consideration. You cannot archive your memories.  _You_ cannot put aside my failure to protect you from Drift. I could not move. I comm’d Ratchet for help, but because I was incoherent it took forty-eight astroseconds for him to understand the problem and move to retrieve you.”

“That wasn’t your fault!”

“You made a horrible noise. My intakes were functioning well enough by then that I could smell your adrenal compounds.”

“Optimus, he didn’t hurt me. I’m as alien to him as he is to me. He misunderstood!”

“The point is that you must keep the memories of what transpired because of my failing.”

Kim buried her face in her hands. “That’s not entirely true,” she said. “Human memories fade a little, after a while. Yours don’t do that. Right? The details won’t get fuzzy.  The emotions that mark them will always be vivid and clear.”

He didn’t answer.

“Don’t make this my fault. Don’t keep _suffering_ because of me.”

The air vents whooshed a jet of icy air. Kim scrambled for the tablet—the comforting glyphs—shit—

The vents snapped off. “I’m finished. The remaining sectors I could not transcribe are summarized. The original files are isolated.” That quickly. _Good with memory_ , Ratchet had said.

Kim closed her eyes and forced herself to relax. “I keep telling myself you’re seven thousand years old, you’ve made it through harder things than this, you’re going to be fine.”

“Correct,” he rumbled. “In all respects.”

Kim nodded. “That’s good,” she whispered.

The heater clicked on. Had he stopped franticly dumping heat? Or had he only shifted it to the cab? She wasn’t going to ask.  It wasn’t like she could help either way….

_Please be okay._

“Do you wish to continue?” he asked softly.

“The lesson? Sure?” She reached for the tablet.

“I assume…yes, Bumblebee gave you the glyphs for ‘listening.’”

There were two; one for just ‘listening’ and one for ‘listening reluctantly or unwillingly.’ Given her function, she had been warned never to use ‘listening reluctantly.’ “It seems odd, that there are only two kinds of glyph for that. I mean, there are fifteen for ‘transporting’ and another nineteen for ‘being transported.’ But I’m sure you listen more than you transport.”

He hummed softly. “The issue is not frequency of activity, but type of verb. ‘Listening’ is a subjective verb.”

Kim felt a stab of professional anxiety: she did not have the training to do a grammatical analysis on even a foreign human language. Russian verbs had had her in tears more than once. She could see no solution, though, but to turn on the tablet’s audio recorder and ask, “What makes a verb subjective.”

“It reflects an internal state that cannot be verified or measured objectively. If you assert you are listening eagerly, I cannot necessarily determine that you are, in fact, only listening distractedly or even with reluctance. Subjective verbs are modified by adverbial glyphs.”

On her screen, ‘listening’ was now paired a dozen times with glyphs like ‘sympathetically,’ ‘angrily,’ ‘in bafflement,’ and ‘with unexpected outrage.’ Kim smiled slightly at the last one.

Most of the pairs disappeared from the screen. “These are acceptable to send to someone who has been injured.”

“Should I…should I be using one of these now.” It was hard to keep her voice from cracking.

“No. The redaction is finished. You do not need to worry about me.”

And no doubt that was true, but—he sounded so _tired_. Kim closed her eyes for a moment. “We…don’t have to do this now. It’s probably about time for me to go anyway.”

“I have no further appointments today, Kim.”

“We could talk about music? Or just sit quietly?”

A glyph flashed across the screen, the label one she had seen before. Then it vanished. Huh.  “What’s ‘overlapping?’” She asked.

“I apologize. It is not a glyph you can use. That was rude of me. An error….”

“What does it mean?”  He didn’t answer right away and Kim began to worry. “Is it a way of telling someone they’ve crossed a boundary? I didn’t mean--”

Very softly—almost apologetically—he said, “It is an invitation. Overlapping is to allow a companion’s electromagnetic field to encompass one’s spark. It is not as intimate as a hard-line interface, but it is much more intimate than verbal or textual conversation. It is a gesture between friends.”

“And I don’t have a spark.”

“I misspoke. There is an apology glyph specific to accidental offense….”

“It’s okay.  You can’t insult an anthropologist by forgetting she’s a stranger.”

“You are not a stranger.”

“I am a _professional_ stranger,” she corrected. “That is my purpose. But I am sorry I can’t overlap with you.” She turned slightly and rested the side of her head against the seat back. “Ironhide and Chromia—the overlapping thing?”

“Yes.”

“And nobody stands too close to Fixit, and I bet it’s because being overclocked throws off his electromagnetic presence.”

“Correct. Even I would not have the processing discipline necessary to make my field palatable if I were overclocking.” A sigh. “Fixit continually exceeds his design specifications.”

“He was fantastic on Tuesday night.”

“He was. You were as well.”

The tablet blinked into hibernation, leaving the cab nearly dark. Kim sighed again and made herself relax.  You couldn’t fake serenity when you were with mecha. If you were going to seem calm, you had to be calm.

No hugging. No hugging and no overlapping—not just between the two of them, but for their two species, forever.

Well. For now, she could sit quietly and be calm. It was comfortably warm, now, in the cabin.

***

Kim, lacking an internal chronometer, could not have said how long they rested like that. A few minutes, anyway.  It ended when a text arrived from Ratchet: a ‘ _Doctor’s orders’_ glyph and the statement ENOUGH FOR NOW. NO MORE WORK.

“Ratchet,” Optimus said a little grumpily, “is of the opinion that I need to run a repair cycle and defrag my drives.”

Kim gathered up her phone and tablet. “Ratchet is always right.”

He produced a stiff laugh. “Resistance is futile.”

Kim froze. “Don’t say that to people who aren’t me.” She climbed carefully out to the ground. “Fowler thinks you don’t have a sense of humor. He’s noticed your lack of wacky hijinks.”

“Do not worry. I will not tease him by threatening to assimilate his species.”

“That’s sensitive of you. Thanks.” She would not ask if he would be all right. She  
would not fuss. She only said, “Good night.”

“I would ask a favor.”

Kim turned back at once. “Anything.”

“Interview Ironhide tomorrow?”

“Sure. What about?”

“Whatever topic you wish. Something complicated. He is getting bored. A distraction would be beneficial.”

“Okay.”

***

When she entered the assembly area, Jazz was before the balcony in conversation with Agent Fowler and General Moreshower.  Kim hesitated only briefly before scooting up the stairs and attempting to slip past them.  Her thoughts were on food and fieldnotes. And maybe a shower.

Fowler motioned her over. “Jazz says you’ve seen Prime since his injury,” he said without preamble.

“Yeah. Sure.” Kim dug in her purse. She might need her notebook.

Jazz folded his arms. Fowler gave the mech—just below eye level from the top of the balcony—a dark look. “You’re the only human who has.”

“Really?” Kim asked Jazz.

Jazz shrugged fluidly. “As it turns out. We limited access to our part of the base while sorting out combat recovery.”

Kim was not entirely sure what that meant, but whatever the reason, she sympathized with the Autobots having a little privacy.

The general sighed. “Jazz assures us his commanding officer is fine.”

“He is,” Kim said. “He’s just getting his paint redone.”

“Chromeonanites,” Jazz corrected. “It takes a couple of days for them to … set properly.” This was a much less technical explanation than even Kim had been given.

Fowler looked unhappy. Kim decided to change the subject. “Did you get my email? Ratchet’s trainee problem?”

“Oh. Yes.” He glanced at Moreshower. “I forwarded that. Nurses instead of engineers?”

The general rocked back on his heels. “Is it really that much harder to teach bedside manner than engineering?”

Kim shook her head. “Ratchet has to spend a lot of time un-teaching engineering as it is. A lot of what our tech people know just doesn’t apply anyway.  And mechanics are in the habit of working on machines. Yeah, they’re enthusiastic because mecha are _cool_ machines. But. Still things.”

The general scratched his head and looked up at Jazz. “What do you think?”

Jazz shrugged. “I’d like to say something optimistic here, but Ratchet is … stubborn.”

“Ratchet is a doctor, and engineers aren’t used to taking the kind of orders doctors give,” Kim said.

The two human men glanced at each other. “You’re saying nurses obey better,” General Moreshower said.

Kim thought back on her single semester of medical anthropology. “When they need to _not_ obey, they know how to do it right.”

“I’m not against it, but it’ll take a couple of months to identify and vet candidates,” Fowler said. “We’ve got another set ready to go on Monday morning.”

The general sighed. “I actually had some hopes for this batch—they’re certainly different enough. But we’ve been playing this game for almost two years.”

Fowler snorted. “We’ve got two nurses on base here. They’re already have the security clearance and they know about the Transformers.”

“What? Just reassign one?”

“What would it hurt?” Fowler turned to Kim. “Army nurse be okay?”

She nodded.

“What factors would be most important? In deciding which one to transfer over?” He pressed.

Kim glanced at Jazz. “Perception.  That they think of mecha as coworkers, not fancy equipment.”

When the humans had left the balcony and climbed into a golf cart for the trip back to army country, Kim said to Jazz, “Everything okay?”

Jazz nodded. “They’re a little skittish. Prime goin’ down scared everybody—NEST, too. They aren’t happy they can’t see him.”

Kim snorted. “He’s got no _paint_. Does he try to have meetings with them when _they’re_ not dressed?”

Jazz glanced shifted his gaze away from the retreating golf cart. “Would that approach work?”

“They’d understand it.” For Jazz and the others, though, Optimus wasn’t ‘naked,’ he looked ghoulish or tragic.  “Only another thirty hours of so, right?”

“He should be fine for all the Monday morning meetings.”

 ***

The next morning her calendar had a four-hour block marked for interview with Ironhide. Four hours?

Kim _liked_ Ironhide. The persona he’d adopted for human interaction was meticulously detailed and charming. He was careful. He was gentle. She liked him.

But unlike Jazz, Bee, and Optimus he was not a general expert in human cultures.  Some of the questions he asked revealed a profoundly different approach to the world, and since Kim couldn’t really understand the way he thought, there was a worrisome possibility that she would unintentionally give offense or alarm him –

And, oh, _yes_ , that was her experience with Drift coming back on her. And no, Ironhide would never hurt her—he was the one that maintained the protocols with respect to human design tolerances—but four hours was plenty of time to profoundly screw things up between them.

Ironhide was still in the infirmary. He was seated on a medical berth when Kim arrived.  His left leg was stretched out in front of him. It looked whole and pristine, even the paint was glossy and perfect. As Kim climbed up the berth, she passed the repair work at eyelevel. “Wow. That’s looking really good,” she said with as much cheer as she could summon.

Ironhide, with a fluid shrug said, “Yeah. Ratchet’s more or less competent.”

Ratchet, walking past on his way to the tunnel, casually tossed a foot-long screwdriver at Ironhead’s head. He ducked with a casual sway to the side.

“So….Okay. When Arcee told me Ratchet actually threw things, I thought she was kidding.”

Ironhide was suddenly serious. “He never misses and he never damages anything.” He raised his voice “He’s just grumpy now because he’s bolloxing up a repair.”

Ratchet, already in the tunnel mouth, ignored him.

Irohnide pointed at the shin plate of his undamaged leg. “Sit here.  I hate to see humans crawling all over the repair berths. We had a trainee misstep once and break an ankle.”

Because she had to, Kim asked, “What repair is Ratchet messing up?”

Sitting on his frame, Kim could feel a soft _click_ and _chug_ —not Cybertonix, she thought, but a systems check. “I fried a circuit panel in my knee—it couldn’t take the voltage and overloaded when we tested out the repair yesterday.  Structurally, my leg is fine now, but I can’t walk on it or transform. The panel has to be replaced--it would take months for my nanites to repair-- and Earth components…aren’t working out. Ratchet’s going to see if anything he can work with can be salvaged from Nautilator.”

“Oh.  Dang. So, you’re stuck here for a little while.”

“Couple more days at least.” Another _click_ and _chug_. “He may have to fabricate the panel from scratch. That’s what you can expect when you’re not only worn out but long obsolete.”

Oh. Scrap. Kim had assumed Optimus had sent her to distract Ironhide because he was bored and fractious.  But no.  He was bored and depressed.

_Well, hell._

She said, “I think it is unimaginably cool, how old you are. Seriously. You’ve been around longer than my people had the _wheel_. It’s amazing. I’m talking to somebody older than—more experienced than--actual wheels.”

He frowned, an amazing piece of anthropomorphizing considering he really didn’t have the faceplates for it.  

“Oh, come on! The things you know. The things you’ve seen—this can’t be the only alien planet you’ve ever been to!”

Slight chin-lift: surprise. A slight lifting of the shoulder plating: attention. “It doesn’t matter now. Some of those places….don’t exist anymore.”

“Pft! My people can just barely locate planets outside our solar system. Hell, I’m not even positive we’ve located all the planets _in_ our solar system!”

“You’re curious about what’s out there?”

“Only for my whole life. As absurdly short a time that is.”

He talked for four hours. A planet with lakes of liquid methane—so cold that if you tried to wade in it even cold-weather hydraulic fluid would freeze up. Quartz cliffs that reflected the sunrise into a kaleidoscope of  light harmonics. A lifeform composed of a thousand semi-independent winged parts, the size of wrens, that could extrude neurological connecters that networked their brains. They spent most of their time as a gestalt, but individual parts disengaged to find food or gather information.

Kim set her phone to audio record and didn’t take notes. Fantastic stories about alien planets weren’t her job here. Four hours of stories from Ironhide were a _treasure_ , but there was not much Kim would be able to do with that treasure right now but pass them through a transcription program and store the files for someday.

For now, she sat riveted as Ironhide described building a bridge over a chasm twice the depth of the Grand Canyon at half again the Earth’s gravity; a moon with a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere but low gravity, so a mech could bolt on wings and glide; an Earth-like planet with oxygen and water, but battered with such strong storms that the plant life was thin and flexible like grass, even as it grew almost seventy feet high.

Four hours passed amazingly quickly. Kim was starting to think about the power bar in her bag when a small group of humans emerged from the tunnel: Captain Lennox, Sergeant Epps, the rabbity guy who ran base security, and Maggie. They had oversized board games with them-big novelty versions of checkers and chess and homemade sets of pente and jenga.

Carefully leaning sideways, Ironhide dragged over a table and gently helped the humans lift the jenga set (It filled two milk crates) onto it. With jostling and trash talk, they began to set the games up.

“Wait, you’re all going to play him at once? That hardly seems fair.”

Lennox laughed. “Believe me, one of us at a time isn’t a challenge for him.”

“It’s the speed,” Ironhide said graciously. “Humans play games very well. And your games are great. But you don’t play quite fast enough to hold our attention.”

Kim withdrew to the observation shelf with her ‘lunch’ and watched Ironhide play the humans. Even with oversized games, he had to manipulate the pieces with a gripping waldo transformed from one of his fingers.  Out of eleven total games, he lost only two.

 


	9. Part 9: Diversity

**Chapter 16**

Optimus was still in the annex. Kim showed up at 5:32, hurrying quietly through the dim tunnel.  The interior light blinked on, and the driver’s side door opened.  This time, Kim made a point of not hesitating. She gripped the handle and the door frame and hauled herself in. “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “How’s it hummin’?”

He answered with a soft, staticky chirp, rocking slightly on his tires.

Kim sighed. “Did I get the phrase wrong?”

Optimus made a soft, throat-clearing noise (surely a feature of the language pack) and answered, “You did not.”

“Bu-u-ut?” Kim prompted.

“It is rather more informal than I am…accustomed.”

“Sorry?”

“I am not offended. To answer your question, I am ‘running strong’ today.”

“You’ll be back in circulation soon?”

“Late tonight. In the meantime, I was hoping to get your opinion on something.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Our adaptation to Earth included mods for bodies of water and a high-oxygen atmosphere, but it is clear another package of protections is necessary.”

“I don’t understand—you have mods for…?”

“Submersion of unprotected circuits in water would--”  

“No, I mean—Oxygen?”

“Hm. Oxidation is hazardous as either fire or rust. Both are an ever-present risk in this atmosphere.”

“Oh. Hell. I didn’t even think about that.”

“We are designing some protections for sand. Implementing the structural changes will alter my armor enough that the most efficient way to integrate it is to reformat my alt-form.” A projector clicked on and four big rigs sprang into existence hovering in the air beside Kim. “I was hoping for a human point of view.”

“On picking a model?” Kim leaned closer to the image. Each was incredibly detailed, she could even see the tiny door handles.

“My alt mode is of most use among humans.”

“Which one—” Kim changed directions as a new thought surfaced. “How serious is this discussion?”

“Serious?” He asked.

“Is it _kind_ of serious, like helping a friend choose a haircut? Or serious-serious like getting a small tattoo? Or is this conversation like talking to someone who’s thinking about getting their nose done?”

There was a short pause. “One moment.” The second pause was longer. Kim looked at the four potential alt-forms displayed in miniature.  They were all beautiful.

“Oh, dear,” Optimus said.

The seconds dragged on.

“You’ve googled human body modification, haven’t you?” Kim asked at last.

“The popular internet content was…unsettling. I have moved on to the academic literature.”

“Yeah…that’s not going to be less unsettling.”

“I have discovered that.”

Kim grimaced. “You okay?”  

“I am…surprised.”

Kim took a deep breath. “You have some questions?”

“I am not sure if it is appropriate to ask them. The subject seems very personal.”

“And since I never ask you personal questions….” He didn’t respond. Kim sighed. “I ask you endless personal questions. Let’s go.”

“Your ears are pierced?”

“Yes.”

“You have no tattoos or implants. Why? Your culture allows these.”

Kim opened her mouth to answer and froze. “Er. Oh. You pick an appearance all at once.  You scan a _whole_ alt form. We look at each individual adornment and consider it separately.  We make sure the adornments look good together, but we usually don’t have a whole final image in mind when we start. We evaluate every modification and—we don’t usually get all of them. Well, usually. Look up ‘lizard man.’”

Another pause, shorter this time. “I see. However, when I take on an alt mode, the intent is to perform the function of the other form, or to _pass_ as the other form. This individual is doing neither.”

“Nope. That’s a social statement.”

“I see. So, each modification is considered separately.  Am I correct that you have not altered your coloring, your metabolism, or the shape of your feet?”

 _Ew_. He’d found gastric bypass and foot binding, then. “Yes.” She took a breath. “In my culture altering metabolism and bones is considered extreme.” 

“Have you altered your dentition?”

“Um, braces. Yes.”

“You are wearing no jewelry.”

“That’s right.”

“But you have installed the mod for earrings. Why do you choose not to use them?”

“Um, because my informants are giant mechanoid aliens who won’t notice how…I…look…and won’t care anyway? Oh. Hell. You are the vainest aliens I could possibly imagine, and here I am with no jewelry, no make-up, and I’d probably seem a lot less alien to you if I dyed my hair purple. Wouldn’t I?” Her face was hot. She buried it in her hands.

“I do not judge you by my standards.”

Kim snorted. “If you’ve actually beaten ethnocentrism, tell me how, right?”  Optimus had spent more than two days sitting alone _in the dark_ because he was the wrong color.

Ugh. How had she missed this?

Maggie always wore make-up. She always did her hair. Her shoes were sleek, lady-shoes not sneakers.   Kim had thought she was just unusually fem or something. But Maggie was so smart. Maggie did math in Cybertronix. Was there any chance Maggie had missed that her coworkers really, _really_ cared about appearances?

It wasn’t fair. ET had been naked, for god’s sake!

“Human females deploy their appearance to communicate messages to human males for the purposes of negotiating…my file says mating rituals and power hierarchies.  I would add economic advantage and romantic love.  I was planning to discuss this with you in detail at some later date. I had assumed your appearance was a message for our male NEST colleagues: disinterest in romantic distractions.”

“If I had been interested in dating, yeah. I would have dressed differently,” she admitted.

“Our positions are very similar,” he said after a moment. “We both wish to tailor our appearance to send the right ‘message’ to the aliens we work with.”

Kim bent a knee so she could turn sideways in the seat.  She leaned her temple against the seatback and sighed. “We’re managing our front stage. Goffman.”

“Dramaturgy. The metaphor is apt. It even translates.” His vents cycled quietly. “To answer your question, I am asking your opinion on growing a goatee.”

Kim chuckled and leaned closer to the image of four miniature tractors. “What are we looking at?” she asked.

One expanded in size. “This is a Kenworth T680.”

***

 **Fieldnotes** :

> I have to do something with my hair. Where do you even get colored hair dye in Jasper?

 

 

> Their control over physical appearance—no, not even appearance, physical function—is so much greater than ours! Optimus was weirded out by the specifics of our body modification, but now I think how trivial ours is: I can’t change my height. I can’t add extra tools to my hands.  I can’t decide to reconfigure myself for extra speed (well, only over a period of months and in the most minimal way). I can be armed, but I can’t carry weapons inside my body.  I can’t imagine what it is like to be them.
> 
> Appearance is a verb. What is it like to be a person, when what you look like is completely something you do?
> 
>  
> 
> Oh, but hey. A lot of the emotions seem to be the same. I really should have noticed that was weird sooner (why would aliens have the same feelings?), but with humans you can count on happy, sad, surprise, fear, anger, and disgust being universal. I’ve seen all of those from mecha. No romantic love, but not all human societies have that. And they do have strong interpersonal attachments. If I treat this like a psychology question, I can just come out and ask Ratchet.  If he doesn’t think the topic is interesting, though, or if he doesn’t think I’m smart enough to understand it, I won’t get any useful information.
> 
> What if I go up to Windblade and say, “I’ve noticed our species seem to have a lot of the same emotions?”  If the thought irritates her, she might start listing emotions she thinks humans don’t have.  Or she might warm up finally, if she thinks about us being similar. Ugh. Windblade. She is almost as grossed out by organics as Ratchet. That would be ‘disgust.’

 

> It’s weird being in the field this long and not eating with informants. I guess my last event was the Armenian Orthodox potluck…six months ago now. And that doesn’t really count. I suppose before I got here I would have thought eating in the DFAC was strange enough to count as a field experience—But it’s eating American food with humans. Compared to the real field here it feels so normal. Like Malinowski hanging with the European expats in the Trobriands.  Maybe I should eat at the DFAC less. But how  else am I going to get vegetables?

 

> Arcee is pretending to be feminine. Well, no—she is being feminine. And she must be doing a great job because she is labeled as female by people who have seen her combat alts in person. Jeez. They’ve only been here four years. Everything she knows about women, she learned in four years! Not just how we interpret the category, but the possibility of the category. It isn’t a ‘natural’ way of anybody being to her. In her own body and social role, she is completely non-reproductive. So, after four years--what does she think being a woman is?
> 
> And where did she learn it?!? 
> 
> ! The internet!  That thing she does with her hips, I bet it came from music videos.  And flipping her ponytail of sensor coils.

 

>  oh, God. What am I going to do about my hair? And my clothes. Shit.

 

> I miss knowing how to dress.
> 
> I miss Boston. I miss humidity. I miss sushi. And Ethiopian food. And access to an oven.  And fresh mutz.

 

> I’m going to have to buy jewelry. But not the kind that could dangle and get caught in something.  Earrings, though. I have the mods for them. They like bright colors. They like things that shine. I have to be careful to stay in the range of ‘fashionable’ because of course many of them will be following the trends in mass media.

 

> Is Ironhide the only one who plays games? What human games do they like best? What games do they play with each other. I’ve never seen anything like a game board, but if it is a computer game, they don’t need—heck, they might not even need a screen. They could hook up directly over the wifi.

 

> I need some advanced linguistics textbooks. It may not help. Their feelings may overlap a lot with ours. Language—nope.

 

> What am I going to do with my hair?

***

At 7:53 on Monday morning Kim planted herself at the infirmary’s yellow line.  She’d gone to town with Bumblebee the previous afternoon and her hair was now a spiky purple ombre. The only make-up she’d bothered with was eye liner and her top was still a T-shirt—but it had a flower picked out in pink rhinestones. Bee had assured her, over face-phone, that it was fashion forward.

The four new trainees arrived in a golf cart. The nurse, a woman about ten years older than Kim, was easy to pick out; she was helpfully wearing scrubs.  She looked nervously at the humongous equipment on the other side of the line. Kim gave her a warm handshake.

The others, Kim didn’t have as much hope for, but she made a point of paying attention to them anyway.

The first was a nineteen year old girl in a somber vest and slacks who had just graduated from Cal Tech with a double major in physics and electrical engineering. The hope was she was still young enough that whatever bad habits Ratchet objected to had not yet set in.

Next was an older, bearded man, a retired community college computer science instructor who had spent the last couple of years on the combat robot competition circuit.

The last trainee was actually Sergeant Epps, who had volunteered because NEST didn’t have a mech field medic. The hope was the potential for disaster on assignment would make Ratchet desperate enough to tolerate him for at least a few months.

At eight precisely, Ratchet came to the yellow line. “You’ve already had this lesson,” he said to Kim. “Shoo.”

 _Yeah…not so much here for you as to watch them_ , Kim thought. She smiled innocently. “I’m sure you already know I didn’t understand it the first time.”

He waved a hand. “Fine. All of you onto the shelf.”

Kim went first. Epps, grinning, was just after her. There were only four folding chairs, but Kim perched on the edge of the shelf. Ratchet shifted impatiently, but did wait till they were all settled before dimming the lights and producing a three-dimensional image of himself.

“This is a mech,” he said. “The plural is mecha, which is more than most humans can bother to remember. A mech has two primary components, the frame and the protoform.” 

***

Again, Ratchet kept the first lesson for a full four hours before releasing them for lunch. This time, though, he told them to come back in ninety minutes to observe a scheduled procedure. Kim had—as always—packed copious snacks and water, but she returned to the cafeteria with the others for the sake of camaraderie.  Mutual support wouldn’t guarantee surviving Ratchet, but it couldn’t hurt. They needed every advantage they could get. 

They made it back from lunch a full ten minutes early. June, the nurse, and Dwight, the bot-fighter were uncomfortably turning over the idea that protoforms were alive.  They seemed to be sort of disagreeing about the meaning of life, but politely and uncomfortably. Carly, the prodigy, was sketching a protoform in her notebook.

When Ratchet came in from the assembly area he had Optimus with him. Optimus was a glorious, glossy red. Kim smiled faintly as he settled himself on the berth below the shelf and uncovered his wrist port so that Ratchet could connect him to a diagnostic panel.

Ratchet glanced at the observers on the shelf. “We’re going to test the chromeonanites first.”

“They are fine,” Optimus said with exaggerated patience.

Ratchet ignored that. “Show me that paint job you wore on Aivas.”

A ripple, and Optimus was a mirror-bright silver with blue spirals curving delicately over his shoulders and chest. Dwight and Carly gasped audibly.

Ratchet grunted a reluctant acceptance. “Invert it.”

The colors reversed.

“Yellow, please.”

This time the shift was slightly slower. Ratchet _tisk_ ed. “Looking a little green on the forearms.” It took a couple of seconds, but the color smoothed out to a smooth, even yellow—and then slid further into a nearly-painful dayglow yellow that was practically luminous. “All right. That’ll do,” Ratchet said grudgingly. “I suppose you’re still determined to test the new mods yourself?” Without waiting for an answer, Ratchet stalked off to a workstation on the other side of the infirmary.

“What’s going on?” Dwight asked.

It was Epps who answered. “He’s going to restructure his armor to make it easier clear debris. Ironhide was working on the mod yesterday.”

June was eyeing the berth dubiously. “He doesn’t look comfortable,” she ventured. “Is he okay?”

Kim felt a surge of triumph.  She glanced around. A portable table—closer to Optimus—was only a foot down and two feet over from the shelf. It was an easy hop. She looked back at the students. “Come on.” It was Epps who came first, of course.  Carly and June came next.  Dwight shook his head.

Kim sat where Optimus could see her—he was still below her and a good three yards away, but it was the best she could do—and asked, “Is it okay if we’re here?”

“I do not object,” he said. “Ratchet will probably send you back to the shelf.”`

“It’s not so bad,” Carly said. “We won’t be stepped on up there.”

“You won’t be stepped on anywhere,” Epps said almost sharply.

Kim patted her shoulder. Gad. She’d been a TA for students older than this kid. “They always know where we are.” She pulled a Moon Bar from her purse. “Optimus, if I throw this from here, can you catch it without breaking it.”

“Of course,” he said.

“With your optics off line?”

In answer, his eyes dimmed and went still. Kim tossed the packet underhand. His servo—how could someone so large move so lightly—rose in a leisurely  arc and plucked it from the air. Still without engaging his eyes, he tossed it back so that it landed neatly in Kim’s lap.

“He knows exactly where we are, all the time, without looking at us,” Kim said. “They all do.”

June frowned. “Are we bothering him?”

 _Oh_ , Kim thought, _so close_.

Very gently—he had the patience of a saint, surely—Optimus said, “You are not bothering me.”

June bit her lip.

“No, really,” Kim said. “Look at him. Everything is fine.”

“Perhaps you could explain, Kim?” Optimus prompted.

“Well, your optical arrays. When something complicated is going on or the conversation is heavy they change focus. It looks kind of like—right. That. And when something is very surprising the little lenses ripple—Thank you. Like that. I think it is a reset.” Kim listened for a moment. “Also, you’re quiet. If you weren’t comfortable with us looming over you, I would be able to hear your fans from here. And there’s little clicks and wooshes. That’s a system check.”

Epps said, “There’s kind of a low-pitched swish, when they test hydraulic pressure. But they also do that when they’re bored. What’s _serious_ —it’s kind of a hum.”

Optimus, obligingly, began to emit an electrical whine.

“That,” Epps said, “is a capacitor charging. If you hear that, somebody’s pissed. Or about to, you know, go into combat. Either way, just back off—if they’re running battle protocols they’re not in the mood for conversation. Or if their weapons are actually, you know, out.” He smiled slightly. “Not that Big Buddha here ever loses his temper like that.  If he’s readying weapons it’s because something needs to be slagged.”

The whine died at once.

 _Damn,_ Kim thought. _I have not spent nearly enough time listening to NEST._

“Nurse Darby,” Optimus said softly, “we have also learned to notice human cues.  You and Miss Spencer are a little nervous. Bobby is enjoying this experience. Kim, you seem worried. May I ask why?”

Really, what wasn’t there to worry about?  She didn’t want to see another batch of trainees go south, but one of them was already retreating to the shelf. Optimus was lying in a medical berth again and it was hard not to think about the last time he’d been here. And Ratchet was on his way back and just talking to him was enough to make anyone nervous…. She did not want to say any of that, but she must not lie and say everything was cool.

Well. These were medical trainees, the medical issues were the right thing to talk about: “I’m a little confused. Why are the new mods being added surgically? I thought things like that were handled by the T-cog.” _Please, please don’t let the reason you’re in a repair bed be_ bad _…._

“That is actually a very good question,” Ratchet said, sounding surprised enough to blunt any implied approval.  “Optimus could make all the necessary structural alterations himself. However, doing so would require a great deal of energon. It is more economical for me to make the larger structural changes before using internal systems to finish the installation.”

Two big mecha were coming out of the tunnel—Ironhide and Bulkhead.  June and Carly shifted nervously. They were doing better than Dwight, but weren’t used to being close to giant aliens yet. June said, “Um, can I ask a question?”

Ratchet, laying out oddly shaped metal _things_ on the table beside them, sighed. “There are no stupid questions.”

Kim choked back a laugh. She had never heard him say that without adding, “There are only stupid people.”

“I know you have more space in ‘Bot country—why is the hospital out in the middle of everything?”

Ratchet sighed, suddenly serious. “This is as close as I could get it to the ground bridge. I am prohibited from entering a combat zone.”

Optimus trilled softly in Cybertronix.

Kim cleared her throat and said pointedly, “But what about patient privacy, Ratchet? Everyone passing can see what you’re doing, and to whom.”  She nodded to Ironhide and Bulkhead, who were crossing over the yellow line into the infirmary.

“Pft,” Ratchet said, with a ripple in his optical array that looked just like an eye-roll. “She thinks she’s funny.”

Kim elbowed June gently. “No HIPPA! Even when something is classified and they don’t tell the humans, all the mecha know.”

“Anyway, Ironhide and Bulkhead are here because they are our only structural engineers. I need them handy in case we need to make a change on the fly.”

Bulkhead lowered his hand, palm out. “Yo, Bobby,” he said. Almost absently, Epps gave him a high five.

***

The biggest pieces of armor plating and everything protecting processor, memory core, and spark chamber would be left rigid, but every plate around the joints or weapons mounts had to be removed and reattached with hinged pieces mounted on tiny actuators. Ratchet was unusually patient, pointing out the tiny sensor nodes and data lines that nestled into each alteration.

Ratchet worked quickly and smoothly, Ironhide peering over his shoulder without comment. Bulkhead, restless, stood beside the human’s observation table. He shifted his weight and, now that she knew what to listen for, cycled his hydraulic fluid.

Carefully—she did not like walking on the table—Kim edged a little closer. “What’s wrong, Bulk?”

“I build defense platforms, not body mods. It’s small and fiddly.” He scowled. “And it’s _him_.”

Carly, who was leaning so far out from the table it made Kim a little nervous, asked, “Why does it bother you that it’s him?”

Ratchet didn’t pause or look up from the filament he was connecting. “Do the humans not read the orientation folders?”

Ironhide shifted his broad, optical lenses to glance at the humans. “They don’t have Primes. It doesn’t translate. Doesn’t matter how you explain it.” He gave an apologetic shrug.

“Prime is their head of state,” Epps said. “Like the president.”

Optimus glanced toward Kim and nodded fractionally: she should take a swing at it. “He’s the pope. Or maybe the Dali Lama. He isn’t just in charge; his person is holy.”

Epps’ eyebrows went up. “He goes into combat,” he protested.

Ratchet’s hands paused for a fraction of a section before he manifested a plasma torch and began to smooth out a small protrusion that would limit the mobility of a shoulder plate. Ironhide and Bulkhead were now making eye contact with no one. Kim said, “I’m sensing mixed feelings about that.”

“I’m extraordinarily well armed,” Optimus said quellingly.

Ratchet made a ‘tickety-beep’ sound Kim had heard before was pretty sure was a nasty expletive in Cybertonix.

***

The surgical stage of the modification took almost three hours. Optimus needed fourteen hours of defrag and repair after that, and he couldn’t enter his old alt mode with the restructured armor, so he’d have to ‘sleep’ on a medical berth in the infirmary.  Ratchet dismissed the trainees for the day.

Kim considered Ironhide for a moment. He was standing quite close to Optimus, but neither looking at him nor close enough for overlapping. Perhaps a distraction would be a kindness.  Kim took out her phone and texted a request for the new recruits to have a security tour.

Ironhide was agreeable, but Dwight shook his head and walked back down the tunnel toward human country. Kim was fairly sure he wouldn’t be back. It wasn’t Ratchet’s fault this time.

~end  
~~~~  
So. Sixty-one thousand words. That is an awful lot of words. Enough words that in this very good place to stop this story, I'll go ahead and stop and try to sort out where the plot goes next. Thanks, everybody, who has come along on this! I never, ever thought I would *write* giant robot fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have enough nurses in the family to know that nurses rule. No, it's not a 'good default job for women,' despite the fact that the pay is great and demand is always high. There is a reason why most nursing-school graduates are in another profession 6 years later. 
> 
> Nurses--the ones who stay a decade or more--are the grown-ups in the room, the problem-solvers, the responsible takers-of-the-long-view. Nurses are the rubber and the road.


End file.
